


Valentine's Day

by sifuamelia



Series: Ne Me Quitte Pas, Mon Cher [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Armin Arlert & Krista Lenz | Historia Reiss Are Related, Barista Marco Bott, Blind Date, Closeted Character, Coming Out, Cute Bertolt Hoover, Developing Relationship, Drama, Eren is in Denial, Established Relationship, Eventual Romance, Family Feels, Family History, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Food Critic, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Jealous Jean Kirstein, Jealous Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Jealous Mikasa Ackerman, Jean Is A Little Shit, Mikasa Ackerman & Levi Are Related, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, Nerd Armin Arlert, New York City, POV Alternating, POV Multiple, Sasha Being Sasha, Secret Crush, Temporarily Unrequited Love, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-24 21:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1617020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sifuamelia/pseuds/sifuamelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin Arlert has met the perfect girl, but she seems way more interested in his best friend, Eren Yeager. It's too bad that Eren's love life is already confusing enough, what with his feelings for his practically-sister Mikasa Ackerman slowly but surely growing as well as romantic competition with his long-time rival, Jean Kirstein. Mikasa's best friend Sasha Blouse is about to celebrate her one year anniversary with her boyfriend Connie Springer, but she isn't sure of what he might be expecting after their fancy dinner. Connie's good friend Marco Bott, a Starbucks barista, has hit a bit of a romantic stumbling block built up by his favorite (and perpetually grumpy) customer, but by using the advice of his much more worldly friends, he might just have a chance at winning Jean's heart. At the center of it all is the world-famous chef Erwin Smith, whose five-star restaurant is about to play host to an equally renowned food critic, but dramatics between members of his kitchen team, as well as his roommate's wild attempts at proposing to her boyfriend, might just ruin his chance at a successful review.</p><p>"Valentine's Day" charts the story of a single special evening in February and the romantic changes that it brings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valentine's Day

If his patrons thought that the great Erwin Smith, head chef at the world-class 49 Rock, lived a life of extreme fantasy... well, they were definitely close in their assumptions. Statuesquely tall, blindingly fair, and devastatingly handsome, Erwin was the byproduct of German roots and WASP heritage, and both manifested themselves quite blatantly in his strong, square-jawed countenance and piles upon piles of old money. And if a passerby strolling through the Central Park East midday sun had the impossible ability to look upwards ten stories and through the horizons of Erwin's great room's floor-to-ceiling tinted windows draped in heavy green and gold, he might have sighed with longing, because man, did that guy have it _good_.

But screw that facade of pure perfection, because tonight, Erwin Smith was an absolute mess. And it all came down to a guy who stood at five feet two inches tall... but made up for the missing foot with his rather bothersome ability to bring any restaurant to its knees, no matter its preexisting reputation. And the 49 Rock's preexisting reputation was the best in all of Manhattan, maybe even the tri-state area, because Erwin had never settled for anything less.

"Erwin, stop pacing. It's driving me crazy," muttered a frazzled voice, like it was charged with some kind of static, from behind him. He didn't even bother sparing its owner a glance, because lately, she'd been kinda touchy. He supposed it had a lot to do with her residencies coming up at NYU Langone in just a few short months.

He stopped short in an effort towards appeasement, because he _knew_ he'd be an absolute basket case in her place, and not just because he didn't know a thing about medicine. It was because of all the waiting. Like sitting in pediatrics and waiting to get his flu shot at age five, like standing in a two-hour long line to ride the Kingda Ka ten years later - suspense was, and always had been, his greatest enemy. Now or never, was his mantra. And perhaps that was why the news of the world's greatest food critic, known simply as "Levi," hadn't quite made him crack - it had only come yesterday, right before close-up.

"He can't be serious," Mike Zacharias, sous-chef, had said with equal parts disbelief and sarcasm. From what they'd heard, Levi was always, _always_ serious. "Tomorrow's Valentine's Day! It's the busiest night of the entire fucking _year_!"

"Watch your mouth, Mike," Erwin had replied absentmindedly. "We're a five-star establishment, not a roadside Taco Bell."

"Don't worry," Petra Ral, ma **î** tre-d, had told him with only slightly-transparent confidence. She'd patted him gently on his beefy arm, the cloth of his stark white uniform still covered with a yellowed splash of bearnaise sauce. "We've had to deal with a lot worse before. Remember the T-d outbreak last year in the kitchen? We were shut down for months. And when all was said and done-"

"-we had record highs of customers," Oluo Bozado had interrupted, sorting a plethora of menus - breakfast, lunch, dinner, Sunday brunch, cocktail, dessert - at light speed atop a previously-cleared table. The head waiter had then sighed, wiping a bead of sweat from his prematurely-lined forehead.

"Petra's right, Commander," Mike finished, using the team's special nickname for him. "There's nothing we can do about it, so we just need to keep moving forward."

Erwin snapped out of his reverie and back to the present. "Sorry, Hange," he replied listlessly, his eyes trained on the iPad built-in to the wall beside the stainless steel refrigerator, which stood proud within the apartment's state-of-the-art kitchen. 

"Pull the wide end underneath the narrow end and to the right, back through the loop and to the right..." YouTube informed him crisply, and the man in the video performed the most complex series of movements that Erwin had ever seen within his thirty-something years of life. "The wide end should now be inside out..."

"Oh, godammit," his roommate finally cried out in a burst of exasperation, and he turned wildly back towards the great room (visible over the kitchen's exterior half-counter) just in time to see Hange Zoë fly from her precarious perch atop the modern, blocky sofa, nearly knocking over a mountain or two of medical journals, to skid across the recently-waxed kitchen tiles and land right in front of him. Her dark eyes were absolutely wild behind her thick, square glasses, ancient artifacts dug up from their university days, and her nut-brown hair had come half-undone from its generally messy tail. "Let me just put the damn thing out of its misery already."

Before Erwin could even get a word in, Hange had slammed her fist against the iPad's surface, effectively shutting-up the tie tutorial guy, and begun twisting her slim, long fingers in a flash of loops and knots that magically transformed into a delicately beautiful Windsor knot.

Erwin stared down at his suited chest in shock. "How did you-"

She brushed him off with a wave of her hand and leaned backwards onto the marble counter, cracking her back with a heavy sigh of relief as she did so. She looked very, very tired, with paler-than-usual skin and horrible bags, but above them, her eyes shone brightly with all her regular cleverness, something that even three hours of sleep the night before couldn't snuff out. "Mo can never tie his ties. I've done it for him every morning since college."

Erwin chuckled at the thought of a young Hange impatiently forcing shy, unassuming Moblit Berner up against a dorm room wall to fix his four-in-hand. Then again, Hange had always been into that kind of thing...

His thoughts were thankfully interrupted by her voice saying, "Erwin, I know what you're thinking."

He blushed, hard. "Er... Are you _sure_?"

"Yes!" she answered emphatically. She reached up a slim hand and rested it reassuringly on her old friend's wide shoulder. "You're still worrying about that grouchy midget kicking your ass tonight."

"Ha-ah, y-yes, that was it!" he responded, perhaps a little too quickly. She gave him a strange look. "Well, it's just... I'm not just worried about me, or the restaurant, necessarily. I've just got this strange pit in my stomach. It's been growing ever since the T-d fiasco, and the fact that we now have a thoroughly unexpected crit is only making it deeper. It's like..."

"Should I even be bothering with this stuff anymore?" Hange continued for him, perfectly echoing his exact feelings.

"How'd you know?"

She just shrugged, but then threw a dark glare across the room to her study spot. She'd monopolized the long couch a few months before, and it was stacked so high with lab notebooks, paperwork, and field notes that Erwin couldn't even make out the color of the carpet below it anymore.

"Because some days, I get the exact same feeling. Why am I even doing this to myself, you know? Becoming a doctor is _hard_." She frowned, removing her hand from Erwin's shoulder and replacing it on his newly-shaven cheek, forcing him to give her his full attention. 

"But it makes me so, _so_ happy. Studying has sucked, it's true. I feel like I don't even have time to breathe anymore, let alone spend time with you and Mo. But the end result is going to be so worth it, I think. I'm finally going to get to do what I love, and Titan-disease is going down, because I'm planning on dedicating my entire life to kicking that little shit of a virus flat on its nonexistent ass-"

"What about Mo?" It just sort of slipped out, and the mention of Hange's longtime boyfriend's nickname hung awkwardly in the air between them. Erwin counted Mo as their roommate through and through (after all, he always insisted on paying a portion of the sky-high rent), but all parties knew that Mo's idea of a good night's sleep was conking out on a table in Bobst at NYU midway through studying for his medical history PhD. All parties also knew that this arrangement was taking its toll on his relationship with Hange. Erwin hadn't seen them together in a social setting since New Year's.

"What about Mo." Hange's eyes grew distant, and her hand slowly slipped away from his cheek and to her side, to her pocket. "I..."

"Hange," Erwin began warningly, because suddenly, he had a pretty good idea of where this was going-

"It'll be perfect, Erwin! It's Valentine's Day! In New York City!"

"You can't just spring this on him _now_. It's not fair, to him or you! Jesus, you haven't even been having..." He coughed then, desperately wondering he was beginning to have a tendency to do this to himself.

"For your information, Mr. Know-It-All, Mo and I are _still_ passionate lovers! Maybe not in the confines of this swanky apartment, mind, but." She shook a laughing finger at him. "Don't look so shocked, 'win."

"Okay, okay, too much information!" He threw his expansive hands up in front of his face like a mock shield. "But when did you find the time to buy a ring, anyway?"

"Was my mom's," she responded casually as she finally produced the miniature velvet cube from the depths of her ratty cargo jeans. "It's pretty plain."

"Lemme see."

"Manly enough, you think?"

Erwin scrutinized the silvery band. Although it was set with a minuscule diamond, it looked quite sturdy. "Yeah, yeah, I think so. I'm not very good at the whole 'romance' thing," he finished, throwing in a set of air quotes for good measure. He checked, and then double-checked, the spotless golden Rolex that Dot Pixis had gotten him for his last birthday. Still two hours to go before it was remotely acceptable to show up at the kitchens. After all, Mike had sworn to kick his ass to the curb if he did so. He wanted to do set-up by himself, he had said.

The waiting game was literally going to kill him, though.

"Which is kinda crazy, if you think about it! You're quite the catch. Good looks, old money, respectable job, fancy digs..." Hange trailed off absentmindedly, digging through a sheaf of papers depicting human anatomy that lay scattered across the carpet closest to the kitchen. "The future Mrs. Smith will be a lucky gal."

"Eh. Food is more important to me than women," he tried, turning away so that she couldn't catch him blushing like a schoolgirl.

Because it was the bona fide truth. And as Hange burst out giggling at his response, shouting things like 'fatass' and 'forever alone,' he made himself laugh along with her, because pretending to like women was the best he could do.

Even though it was so goddamn hard.

 

* * *

 

"No way," was his flat-footed answer, and Armin Arlert couldn't help but cower beneath his best friend's ominous green-eyed glare.

"C'mon, Eren, it's just a sweater-"

"It has buttons. I can't wear a sweater with buttons. I'll look like a girl."

Armin sighed heavily through his nose and surreptitiously unbuttoned the forest green sweater vest that he'd been wearing over a neatly pressed blue-checked button-down.

"N-noted."

"Jesus, Armin, why do I have to do this anyway-"

"Can we just get this over with already?" Jean Kirstein asked from the corner of Eren's bedroom, speaking up for the first time since they'd gotten home after school and not even bothering to hide the derisiveness from his tone. "I could be, like, doing homework or something." He ran a calloused hand through the fuzzy, mouse-colored thatch that ran wild atop his head, subconsciously creating a sizable cowlick at the back.

"Why the hell would you be doing homework on a Friday night?" Eren quickly countered, glaring at the other boy's reflection in Armin's mirror and not even attempting to hide his dislike for him. Seriously, the only reason that he put up with Jean was because the idiot had a car. A shitty car, but a car nonetheless, and Eren was sorely lacking in the motor vehicle department.

Jean made an impatient noise in the back of his throat as a response and flopped back down onto the beanbag he'd taken up residence on hours earlier.

"This Annie girl of yours better like her blind dates hot and bothered, Armin," he drawled, and, without missing a beat, Eren snatched up Armin's abandoned sweater vest and flung it in his best frenemy's face.

 

* * *

 

"Where we headed?" asked Connie Springer as Jean impatiently maneuvered his death trap of a van out of the former's driveway. His friend hadn't even bothered to check his surroundings, and he let out a loud yelp of surprise as he nearly backed into a sedan parked at the curb.

"Shit!"

"Jean, you are the only reason that I'm happy about not having a car. I just don't wanna be driving on the same roads as you."

"Shut it, Yeager," Jean glowered, his slim, tanned hands spinning rapidly across the ripped-up leather steering wheel as he turned out of the quiet Fort Trost cul-de-sac. He looked at Armin in the mirror, then.

"C'mon, Armin, where are we going first? You're the man with the plan, right?"

"R-right!" Armin glanced down at the extensive list tabulated as "Valentine's Day" within his cluttered iPhone, but it didn't matter much - he already knew the evening by heart. "Okay, we're aiming to end up at the Rose Plaza to pick up an outfit for Connie... and some 'special last minute stuff'-"

"Condoms!" Jean coughed very, very loudly, and Connie's absence of hair enabled his blush to create the perfect image of a tomato head.

"Okay, Kirstein, what's your special last minute stuff? You know, seeing as you don't have a girlfriend-"

"Hey, hey, ya never know, that might change!" Jean fired back. "Besides, if you and Sasha are going out, and Eren and this Annie girl might hook-up, well, I'm gonna need to make some new _friends_ , see?" He winked at Armin in the rearview, but Armin could barely muster the tiniest grin back.

Instead, he opted to gaze out the window in the direction of the city, already beginning to glow as the daylight died slowly but surely away, silhouetting skyscrapers and statues against orange and pink. Living in New Jersey wasn't much, Armin had always thought, but the views of Manhattan sure were splendid.

"Besides, I hear Mikasa's out with Sasha now, so maybe I can get a good word in when we see her at the mall-"

"You stay away from her!" was the sudden, violent yell, and Jean nearly swerved into the oncoming traffic. The blaring of horns served to puncture the awful silence that quickly filled up the van.

"Whoa, uh, sorry, man," Jean began nervously, ruffling up his cowlick even further. "I didn't mean... It's just, I know she's like a sister to you. Sorry. That was outta line."

Eren's facial features suddenly rearranged - chestnut eyebrows smoothed, ocean-colored eyes widened, nostrils calmed. And then, with a deep breath-

"Nah. It's okay. Do whatever you want."

Even if they hadn't been best friends since they were in diapers, Armin would've been a fool to not pick up the very upset note coloring Eren Yeager's tone.

Connie blinked slowly, taking in his friends' tight faces one by one. "Um... So what's after the mall?"

"Well, we're going to meet the girls there. We'll drive you, Sasha, and Eren to the train station so you two can get into the city-"

"-and go to 49 Rock!" crowed Jean, slamming the flat of his palm on the wheel and accidentally honking the van's rusty horn. "Man, am I jealous! That place has the best food in the universe!"

Connie's cheeks regained a bit of their glow. "R-really? D'you think she'll like it?" Jean nodded enthusiastically in response, but Armin could see that his eyes were still narrowed. Clearly, he was still thinking about Mikasa.

Armin sighed. _Some things never change._

He readjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, an unfortunate recent addition, and hurried on, "When you guys get to Penn, you'll meet up with A-Annie, who lives in the area, and she'll take you to the restaurant. Jean and I are going to stay near the train station with the car and see _Robocop_ -"

"It's gonna be _sooo_ bad-"

"-and then we'll come pick you all up around midnight." He paused, making sure everyone was listening. "Sound good?"

"So, I guess I _do_ have a date?" was Jean's response, and he winked at Armin. Their forced chuckles turned into real ones, now, and they lasted all the way up to the Rose's expansive parking lot.

 

* * *

 

"No, no, the _nice_ linens! You know, the _pure_ white ones, not the _off_ white ones-"

"Jesus, Petra, you sound like the 'fucking blood-orange' guy," Oluo muttered underneath his breath. But he retrieved the desired set of cloth napkins anyway, albeit with a dark look thrown in.

"Hey, no swearing," Nanaba the patissier chided sternly, gracefully twisting in and out of the series of round tables and delicately reshaping Oluo's haphazard folding jobs with deft fingers. "We're a _five_ star restaurant, remember? This isn't-"

"-Taco Bell," cut in a chorus of well-conditioned kitchen staff members.

Gunther Schultz, the chef garde, appeared then, clapping his hands loudly together and making the company jump in their shiny patent-leather shoes.

"Alright, people, let's go, let's _go_! The Commander's almost here, so we've gotta be ready to get this show on the road!"

"Hey, Gunther, how much hair gel did that 'do take, anyway?" asked Oluo.

"You don't want to cross me tonight of all nights, Bozado, I promise you that." He paused, thinking, and then laughed loudly.

"That is, if that squirt critic doesn't eat you and your sloppy waiting job alive first!"

 

* * *

 

**Seven days before**

"Armin, where the hell have you been?"

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Armin Arlert chanted absentmindedly, scrambling to uncover the forest green polo within his explosion of a backpack. "The train out of Fort Trost was late!" He found it wedged between his Physics notebook and a half-eaten turkey sandwich, and sighed when he noticed the unfortunate mustard stain spreading across one of the lapels.

 _Well, c'est la vie._ He ran a thumb just beneath the blemish, tracing the threads of the school logo.  _Survey Pilot School Math Corps,_ read the blocky navy stitching in an arc over a pair of navy and white wings.

"Put it on already!" He was sure that Nac Tias, one of his teammates, intended it as a friendly punch, but Armin could already feel a nasty bruise beginning to blossom on his frail shoulder. "We need to get going, they're announcing the teams any minute now!"

"Okay, okay!" Armin hollered with uncharacteristic harshness, and the rest of the team turned around to stare.

Coach Shadis looked especially angry as he stalked over towards them, a fire burning in his sunken, wrinkle-edged eyes. "C'mon, Arlert, get your head in the game! This is the big leagues, alright?"

They were nearly nose to nose when Shadis added with a disgusted mutter, "If you're gonna screw up like last time, kid, don't you dare bring your teammates down with you, too." He paused, and then added, "Or else."

Armin swallowed hard past the nasty lump beginning to rise in his throat. He knew exactly which screw-up Shadis was talking about. Although it had been nearly a year, the coach still hadn't let him forget about it.

"Sir, yes, sir!"

"Okay, troops! Move out! Arlert, change into that uniform already, and then haul ass to the auditorium, okay? It's just down the hall. Even  _you_ shouldn't miss it."

The lump in his throat grew.

As soon as the classroom door slammed shut, Armin speedily tugged off his t-shirt and pulled the polo down over his shaggy blond hair. He caught a glimpse of his painfully skinny chest in the darkening window, and it caused him to let out a rueful sigh.

 _Am I ever going to hit my growth spurt?_  he wondered as he combed a few fingers through his messy locks, trying to get the last remaining strands out of his big blue eyes.  _Hanging out with Eren and Jean sure isn't doing much for my ego. But I think I might be gaining on Connie!_

But as he struggled to lift his chunky bag into his too-thin shoulders, he knew he couldn't put it all down to an unfortunate case of nonexistent puberty. He knew his grandfather was trying his absolute hardest to provide for him, but sometimes, there just wasn't enough food on the table.

Loudspeaker feedback coming from the auditorium down the hall jolted him out of his reverie. "Announcing the Garrison High Math Team!" crowed the announcer.

 _Crap._  He stuffed the bag onto a nearby shelf, switched off the classroom's blindingly fluorescent lights, bolted out into the hallway-

"My calculator!" He was right back where he started, digging frantically through his stuff for his TI Titanium.

_No, that's my Calc textbook, where is it, where is it..._

_...Aha!_

"And now, from Military Academy..."

"Coming, coming," he muttered to no one, dashing back into the hallway once again-

-and promptly colliding with the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen.

 

* * *

 

**Present day**

"So, what's this Annie girl like?" Eren casually asked him, arms folded tightly across his chest as he watched Jean relentlessly chase an appalled Connie around the drugstore with a box of Trojan Extra-Ribbed.

Armin wondered if his friend was actually interested in that topic at all. He certainly didn't look like it. "Well, I can't tell you  _too_  much, right? It's a _blind_  date!"

"Oh, c'mon, Armin, at least give me some hints! I need to know what to talk with her about!"

"Okay, okay! Well, she's frighteningly smart-"

"Oh, great, she'll think I'm dull, then-"

"She goes to Military Academy in the city-"

"Pretentious-"

"She has two cats-"

"I'm a dog person, myself-"

"Dammit, Eren, just listen for once, will you?" Armin suddenly cried out, and in that moment, it felt like he finally had Eren's genuine attention. The other boy looked at him with ocean-eyes shocked wide. He then gave Armin a slow nod.

"Thank you," Armin said, not trying in the slightest to keep the sarcasm from coloring his tone. "Anyway, she's on her school's math team, that's how we met. At the competition at NYU last week-"

"The one you got that fancy medal from?" asked Eren, and Armin felt pleased that he remembered.

"Yeah, that one."

"What else does she like besides math, then?"

"Well, she likes to travel. And she's into judo-"

"Oh, Jesus, great! You've set me up with a girl who's smarter, stronger, and God, more cultured than me? She isn't going to like me at all-"

Armin shrugged. "She reminded me of Mikasa, you know. And Mikasa loves you."

That effectively shut him up, which was an impressive feat. Armin sighed and gently patted his best friend's forearm. 

"For what it's worth, I mentioned you in passing when we talked after the competition, and she seemed really interested in getting to know you. So just do this for me, okay? As a favor?"

Eren still looked slightly shell-shocked from Armin's comment about Mikasa, but it didn't stop him from curiously asking, "How is this a favor to you?"

He watched the corners of Armin's mouth droop into a sort-of frown as he whispered back, "I'm not really firm on all of the details, to be honest-"

Suddenly, Jean and Connie were headed back their way, and an angry-looking salesman was hot on their heels.

"Hey! Are you idiots actually going to buy those or what? I can't have you damaging the merchandise!"

 

* * *

 

"Hange, honey, I'm home!" Moblit Berner's voice sounded thin to even his own ears, and he didn't even want to think of the heavy bags that had taken up permanent residency below his pale brown eyes. He reached upwards to hang his hat off the sleek silvery coat tree near the apartment's doorway-

"Yeah, yeah, I think so. I'm not very good at the whole 'romance' thing," came an unseen voice, deep and smooth, from the kitchen, floating down the hallway towards him.

"Which is kinda crazy, if you think about it!" entered a second voice, and Mo immediately recognized his beloved Hange's low pitch. But then-

"You're quite the catch. Good looks, old money, respectable job, fancy digs..." He heard her trail off amidst a shuffling of papers. "The future Mrs. Smith will be a lucky gal."

Mo's face burned. _Was Hange..._ flirting _with Erwin?_

He had come to the realization long ago that Erwin was everything he'd never be. Tall, fair, and handsome, with a successful family history and connections all around the city. Even an unfortunate break-out of Titan-disease in the kitchens of his swanky restaurant last year had done nothing to break the man's continuous streak of good luck. Or, at least, that was how Mo saw it.

And lately, he was beginning to wonder if Hange saw it, too. He had always known that his girlfriend was out of his reach, what with her wicked intelligence, wild beauty, and knack for getting to know people (even if it made them slightly uncomfortable). Maybe it was a good thing that they were spending less and less time together. Maybe she deserved Erwin's attention.

_Maybe..._

He shook his head roughly and pulled an agitated hand through his mousy fringe. No. That was no way to think. Hange and Erwin were best friends and nothing more; from the moment he'd met the two at a college party not-so-many-years-ago, they had reassured him of that.

Mo entered the kitchen just as Erwin let out a short bark of false laughter, and he suspiciously wondered if he was truly interrupting something. Erwin looked thoroughly embarrassed, his cheeks flushed pink and his captivatingly green eyes trained on the tiled floor below his feet. 

But Hange looked extremely excited to see him, a gleam that he could only describe as mischievous lighting up her beautiful big eyes, colored the perfect shade of his favorite milk chocolate. "Mo! You've finally made it back to the real world!" She tackled him with a bear hug, and he slid backwards a little, but not before wrapping his arms around her and breathing in her fresh, papery smell. She pulled away and put her hands on his shoulders, looking him dead in the eye. He detected something hesitant there, all of the sudden, and he both did and didn't want to ask what it was.

But the moment was fleeting, and she reached up to gently push a strand of fallen hair from his eyes. He closed them at her touch, and he finally, truly felt at home.

"Okay, Mo. I have a big surprise! You ready?"

His eyes flashed open, taking in her gleeful face. "Um...?"

Suddenly, Erwin looked slightly upset. He was anxiously fiddling with the strap of his gold Rolex, a watch that Mo had always slightly envied. "Hange, don't do it now-"

"Oh, shush," she said mildly, waving a tanned hand in her roommate's direction. "Mo...

"...We're going out to dinner tonight! Valentine's Day... at the 49 Rock!"

Erwin gulped. He hadn't been expecting her to say  _that_!

 

* * *

 

"You look fine," Armin proclaimed with what he hoped was a certain finality. "C'mon, let's check out already! They might already be here!"

"Are you sure?" Connie's eyes darted frantically around the dressing room lobby. They alighted on a sort of coffee table, stacked with boxes upon boxes of colognes. Armin could smell their tacky scents filling the air even from within their manly packaging.

"Should I wear cologne? Does that make me more grown-up? Do you think she'll think I'm more grown-up?"

"Connie," Jean suddenly barked, looking exasperated from his position slumped on the lobby's brown leather couch. "You've been dating Sasha for a year now. A year. Don't you think she would've dumped you by now if that sort of thing bothered her?"

Connie sighed, shoulders slumping. He set the cologne down carefully atop the table. "Okay, okay. I get it." He smiled tentatively at his three best friends.

"Thanks, guys."

"And now both you and Eren look ready for your dates," Armin added on, hoping his voice didn't sound as tight as his throat felt. Connie had had to buy some new clothes at the last minute in order to look presentable after Jean had let him know that band t-shirts and ripped-up jeans weren't appropriate attire for a restaurant like the 49 Rock. He looked a lot better in a classy gold-green sweater that brought out his eyes and a set of darker brown chinos, the pleats crisply ironed. Eren had finally settled for a white button-down (which had been bummed off of Jean, much to the surprise of everyone involved) that set off his tanned skin nicely alongside his pair of navy slacks.

 _They both look so much older than me,_  he thought dejectedly.  _I wish I was taller. I wish that I was the kind of guy who could stand next to Annie and feel worthy of her attention._

"Do you boys need any help?" asked the dressing room attendant. He looked like he wanted them out of there as soon as possible... within an acceptable range of politeness.

Connie drew in a deep breath and finally nodded. "Okay, yeah. I'd like to buy these, please."

Once they'd left the American Eagle and reentered the chilly mall atrium, Connie handed off his old clothes to Jean along with a mysterious box of something that Armin didn't really want to know about. "Can you keep all this in the van for me?"

"Yeah, sure," Jean grunted. He eyed the box speculatively, and Armin was surprised when he didn't make some kind of joke about it.

"Okay, I think we're all set here-"

"Connie?" asked a voice breathily from behind them, and the four boys turned around to see Sasha Blouse and Mikasa Ackerman.

 

* * *

 

Erwin carefully unlocked the back door of the restaurant, secluded in a quiet alleyway with just enough room for the kitchen team to park their bicycles (and in Oluo's case, a distinctly unfashionable moped). It had been an unseasonably warm afternoon - joggers and dog walkers had abounded as he'd opted to stroll towards Rockefeller Center instead of take the train - and although the sun was sitting lower in the sky, the city seemed more alive than ever before. Seeing all of the happy couples emerge with holiday spirit to flood the city's streets had never bothered him before - he enjoyed seeing their warm smiles - but after talking with Hange, the stigmatized romance of the day suddenly seemed forced and even unpleasant.

He sighed. Hange was right.

_Forever alone._

"Erwin!" There was a chorus of greetings from his staff as he entered the heavily industrialized kitchen. He breathed in the faint smell of endless stainless steel and suddenly felt a little bit better. He hated to admit it, but the 49 Rock always felt more like home than his own apartment.

"How we doing, Mike? All set?" Erwin asked his assistant chef as they crossed paths. The former removed his suit jacket - food critic be damned - and shrugged on a newly washed chef's coat, which was much more comfortable in his eyes.

"Tables are dressed, menus are ready, staff's in position. I think we're ready as we'll ever be." Despite this cheery admission, however, Erwin could see that Mike was frowning, and as the latter turned away, the former grasped his elbow, forcing their eyes to meet.

"What's wrong? Be honest with me."

"Nothing more than usual," Mike said, and it sounded truthful. "It's just, well-"

"What's the big idea? You messed them all up! Now the dessert menus are mixed in with the cocktail sheets!" Oluo sounded very, very angry. "Now I need to re-sort them!"

"Cut it out! I said I'd do it myself!" responded a high-pitched voice that Erwin knew belonged to a certain red-headed someone.

Mike sighed heavily and rolled his narrow eyes. "Yeah. Those two might be a problem."

Erwin frowned.  _Tonight, of all nights?_

 

* * *

 

"Sash," Connie breathed, looking faintly concussed. She blushed, hard, and for a moment, it seemed like they were the only two people beneath the chilly glass roof of the Rose Plaza, shamelessly showcasing a darkening February sky tinged with just a hint of dusty red.

 _Snow,_  she thought offhandedly.  _It's going to snow tonight._

And then,  _Boy, does he look_ fine _._

Mikasa Ackerman gently elbowed her in the ribs, her coal-black eyes trained on her best friend's starry look. She coughed slightly, and the moment was broken - Sasha regained her footing and closed the distance between herself and her boyfriend, shyly taking his hand.

 _Red suits her,_  Connie thought.  _It's as bright as her personality, and her eyes, and-_

Jean's snigger broke through Connie's reverie. "Oh, c'mon!" he crowed. "Just kiss her already!"

"Jean!" Armin admonished, but the couple didn't seem to mind - Connie had delicately taken Sasha's face in his tanned hands, and now he planted a light kiss...

...on her cheek.

"That wasn't a kiss," Jean grumbled, earning himself a smack from Armin. The four of them circled up around a joking retort that Connie made, and Mikasa suddenly found herself standing alone with Eren.

She knew Eren so well that he had become a mystery to her. And it had all begun recently, really - his reluctant willingness to hang out with her, his refusal to be caught alone with her, his poisonous glares whenever he saw her talking with Jean. It was like he was a totally different person now, and she didn't understand him. She especially didn't understand the hard light that had flashed through his ocean eyes as he had watched Connie's gentle kiss.

Mikasa sighed and attempted to brush those thoughts away. They just weren't worth her time. And effort.

And they could ruin everything.

She touched her brother-in-everything-but-genetic-code (or so she liked to think) on the arm, but to her disappointment, he quickly flinched away. She hoped that the extreme hurt that she felt at this didn't register in her eyes, but it must've, because Eren finally looked down at her and seemed to realize it.

"I didn't see you at school today," he stated flatly.

Mikasa frowned. "I was there," she responded shortly. "But you're right. Maybe you just weren't looking."

Eren's mouth opened, then closed, and then opened again. He was caught between everything he should say and everything that he shouldn't. And, before he could stop himself, he picked the worst option of all: "I'm going on a date tonight."

Mikasa's stomach plummeted. She'd known for awhile. Jean had told her a few days ago at their track meet, but Eren's admission made it seem all the more real.

"You know that Annie girl that Armin won't shut up about?" Jean had said, with that sort of smirk that she detested so much. "Well, she and Eren are going on a date!"

"Congratulations," she tried. It sounded very,  _very_  false.

"What kind of response is that?" asked Eren, his tone hard and his eyes flinty.

"What do you want me to say?" Mikasa retorted quickly. She balled her hands at her sides then. That wasn't a thing that Mikasa would say. Or, at least, the Mikasa that she tried so hard to be.

She didn't know that all Eren wanted was for her to tell him, "Don't go." Or, "You're making a mistake." Or, or, or. There were so many better options for the boy who didn't care in the slightest about Armin's friend Annie.

He took a deep breath. Those weren't things that Mikasa would say. She would have long ago if she had wanted to, but it was time he gave up on her. And maybe that was the favor that Armin had been asking him for - to just let go and chase after someone new, because he didn't like seeing his best friend so hurt all the time.

"Look, Mikasa, I-"

But there was Jean, and his grin was too sloppy for Eren's liking. "Hey, Yeager, could I talk to Mikasa for a few seconds?"

Eren crossed his arms over his aching chest, because it was the only thing that was stopping him from punching Jean smack-dab in the middle of his horsey face.

"Alone?" Jean tried.

Still, Eren didn't respond. Armin, Connie, and Sasha were watching them now - Armin looked upset, Connie confused, and Sasha annoyed.

"Why don't you ask  _me_  instead?" Mikasa suddenly blurted out. "Instead of talking about me like I'm not even here?"

Jean looked genuinely apologetic, and to her, it was a foreign expression on his face. She thought he looked all the more better for it, though - modesty  _was_  becoming, after all.

"Um, yeah," he mumbled. "Yeah. Okay. Mikasa, can I talk to you for a second?" A faint blush was now spreading across his high cheekbones, which made Mikasa sigh.

 _Better get this over with,_  she thought, and she tucked an escaping strand of slippery black hair behind her ear. "Sure," was all she responded with.

And they were walking a few steps away from the spot where their four friends stood frozen, when suddenly, Eren broke and shouted, "Don't go with him!"

Her heart stuttered.  _Now? You're speaking up_ now _?_

"Don't go with him... where?" she asked slowly, trying to at least maintain her usual appearance. Her usual appearance, classified by the whispers of the other girls in the locker room as "uninviting," "emotionless," "unfeeling," "intimidating"...

..."uncaring."

"On a d-date," Eren finished awkwardly, and a terrible silence hung suspended between all of them.

"Why would I do that?" Mikasa wondered before she could really think about it. "I mean..."

"...Oh."

"I didn't know it was such a horrible option," Jean whispered. He looked torn between wanting to slam Eren up against the cold white wall or sink into the cold white tiles himself, never to be seen again.

"I-I'm sorry," she mumbled, which caught the group's attention. "I didn't mean... Ugh." She tugged on the loose piece of hair, wishing that she'd inherited her father's thick blond hair instead of her mother's thin, lifeless strands. "It's just, well, tonight's not the best night. I'm meeting up with some friends in the city."

"You're what?" Armin asked suddenly, and she was surprised by the spark that took flight in his mopey sky-blue eyes. "Which friends?" For some reason, Mikasa got the strange feeling that he already knew the answer.

"Your cousin, actually, and her girlfriend. They invited me out. I think Ymir wanted to make the whole Halloween incident up to me."

Eren hissed under his breath, unconsciously touching the spot on his cheek (although the bruise was long gone) where a certain freckled giant had drunkenly punched his lights out.

"Look," she began, seeing her friends' uncertain faces. "It's just..."

"Guys, it's getting late," Sasha broke in unexpectedly. "We need to catch the train!" She hadn't let go of Connie's hand, and Mikasa suddenly wished for something like that. A hand to hold onto, a hand that didn't dole out punches or try to touch her or take someone away from her. A hand that felt  _safe_.

"And I'm gonna need some snacks to tide me over," the girl added as an afterthought, and the low rumble of her stomach convinced everyone that this was the case. 

Connie squeezed his girlfriend's hand reassuringly. "I'll get you some pretzels at the train station, how's that?"

She punched him lightly on the shoulder in response, and Mikasa's throat constricted slightly at the sight of it. Jealousy, maybe? She didn't want to think about it, so, as per usual, she swept it under her emotional rug.

"See? This is why I'm dating him. He financially supports my all-carb diet!"

 

* * *

 

"Were you  _really_  planning on asking Mikasa out tonight?" Armin asked Jean in a somewhat accusing tone. "I thought you were kidding back there, I really did."

Jean looked totally exasperated behind his beat-up van's steering wheel as they circled the movie theater's parking lot, searching for a spot. They'd already dropped their friends off at the station, but he'd given up long before that. Mikasa's shocked face had said enough.

"Jean..."

"Let's not do this, Armin," he responded warningly, and the other boy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"But you can't be  _this_  blind."

"To _what_?" Jean muttered through clenched teeth. His knuckles were bone-white from their iron grip on the slightly lopsided steering wheel.

"To Eren and Mikasa!" Armin suddenly shouted, throwing his delicate, pale hands in the air, and Jean was so surprised that he nearly rear-ended the swanky convertible inching along in front of them.

"What?" was all he could ask, and dumbly so.

"They're in love with each other, that's what! And everyone can see it, except for them. And apparently, you."

 _There's an open spot,_ Jean noticed dully. He didn't even notice his unusually perfect parking job because he was too busy mulling over Armin's echoing words.

"Shit," he mumbled, because it had all fallen into place. Eren's angry outbursts suddenly made so much sense. His defensiveness of Mikasa, the way his eyes always lingered on her, the whispered conversations that they always had, the way she placed her hand on his arm sometimes, to hold him back-

_How could he have been so stupid?_

"Mikasa... and Eren." He rubbed at his eyes and realized two things. One, his throat suddenly felt quite tight. And two, he  _really_  needed a coffee.

And there, sandwiched in between Trost Megaplex and the Chinese take-out place, was Starbucks, faithful Starbucks.  _Perfect!_

"Armin, I-I'll... be right back. I just need-" His eyes darted between his friend and his heaven, and Armin immediately understood. It was well known within their friend group that coffee was the only medicine that Jean required.

Suddenly, Armin felt really, really badly about what he'd said just moments before. Jean hadn't deserved that, and neither had Eren and Mikasa. His head was beginning to pound, and suddenly, a giant box of overpriced Junior Mints sounded like a really good idea.

"I'll meet you in the lobby of the theater when you're done," he told Jean quietly, and the latter nodded briefly before up and bolting.

It was only when they had parted ways that Jean realized that he hadn't asked Armin why, if Eren liked Mikasa so much, Armin had set Eren up with Annie in the first place.

 

* * *

 

"You think we're ready to open the doors, Erwin?" asked Eld Jinn.

The head chef nodded. "Ready as we'll ever be." He squared his shoulders, knowing that at any moment, Levi-the-critic might sit down at one of his perfectly set tables and give his culinary confidence a nice-sized smack.

Eld gave him a light squeeze on the shoulder, and Erwin forced out a smile. "Don't worry, Commander," said the restaurant's most reliable saucier. "We've got this. It's just one crit."

This only made Erwin feel worse. "The most respected critic in the entire universe-"

"And we need to treat him just like any other customer," Eld interrupted. "And we need to treat this just like any other night."

Mike arrived on his right side, ready to offer up a few words of encouragement as well. "Eld's right, Erwin. We can do this. We're ready to go."

"Alright, then." Erwin drew in a deep, deep breath.

"Oluo," he called out, and the head of staff whipped around nearby, already knowing what was coming.

"Open the doors."

He retreated into the kitchens then, because it was up to Petra and Oluo's expertise to handle the incoming crowds. The stoves were just beginning to reach optimal temperature when there was a quiet knock on the back door.

Erwin frowned into a frying pan.  _Who could that be?_  Suddenly, he remembered what Hange was planning. She wouldn't bother him about it now... would she? He handed the pan off to Mike, who looked just as confused, and crossed the room, his unfamiliar dress shoes clacking annoyingly against the freshly scrubbed tiles.

But the person at the door wasn't Hange, or even Mo. It was a friend much older than either of them - a friend from the one summer he spent at the Institute of Culinary Education during high school. A friend that he had lost touch with long ago, and it was one of the biggest regrets of his life.

Because Leon Rivaille was the only person in the world who knew that he was gay. And Leon Rivaille knew because, once upon a time, Erwin had fallen in love with him.

 

* * *

 

"Wow," Sasha said reverently, staring up at the restaurant's embellished sign.  _49 Rock_ , it read in curling, illuminated script. "I've never seen such a fancy font before."

Connie chuckled somewhat nervously. "Is that okay? I mean, is this place too stuffy? We could go somewhere else-"

"Connie," his girlfriend cut in flatly, putting a single gloved fingertip to his surprised lips. "I love it. I absolutely love it."

When she said it, he felt like she was also saying "I love you," so he kissed her, not at all caring about the Valentine's Day hordes lined up behind them to get into the restaurant. This was New York City, after all. There were stranger things than a high school couple kissing happening here every moment.

But to his unpleasant shock, she pulled away, and very quickly. Normally, Sasha loved kissing him. She covered his face in kisses when he looked hurt or upset; she'd peck him on the cheek at school in between classes, and, when they were alone in his bedroom...

He blinked. "I'm. I'm, er, sorry?" His voice cracked at the end, and he stared down at his uncomfortable dress shoes, which were seemingly on a determined mission to pinch the crap out of his toes.

"N-no, it's fine." Sasha's breath was illuminated in puffs of white smoke, which disappeared just as rapidly as their kiss.

 

* * *

 

**To: Aryan coconut**

_she isnt here yet_

**From: Aryan coconut**

_Give her a few minutes, okay? Maybe her train is slow or something._

**To: Aryan coconut**

_thought u sed she lives close, cant she walk? i dont understand nyc_

 

Gray dots blinked up at him from the iMessage chat box, then disappeared. Armin didn't have a reply for him, it seemed. Eren sighed and stuffed his phone back into his pocket-

"Who's 'Aryan coconut?'" asked a voice from behind him. It didn't sound particularly curious - just bored.

"What the-" Eren nearly jumped out of his socks in surprise. There, standing just a little ways off, was a girl.

The first thing that Eren thought was  _sharp_.  _She_  was sharp - all angles, bony shoulders, and piercing blue-gray eyes. She was closing in on him in height, but she beat him in the field of muscle tone. Even though her body was relatively hidden beneath her icy blue peacoat, he could just tell.

"You wouldn't happen to be Annie Leonhart... would you?"

"That's me." She sounded so apathetic. Eren suddenly had the feeling that this was going to be a long night.

"I'm Eren, Eren Yeager." She didn't bat a single blond eyelash. "Er, Armin's friend."

"I know. I've seen pictures." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Have you been waiting out here for awhile?"

"Well..." he hinged.

Her face finally broke into a tiny frown, but it vanished just as quickly, and he wondered if he imagined it.

"My friends are waiting near the front of the line... Would you like to meet them?"

"I guess," she responded flatly.

 

* * *

 

"You look stunning," an awestruck Moblit Berner repeated. "You're just..."

Hange curtsied for him, her complexion set off nicely by the deep blue of her (only) nice dress. "Just what?" she asked teasingly, already starting to fiddle with one of her heavy earrings. She didn't love jewelry, but she liked the way the diamonds felt against her bare neck. And besides, they had been a gift from her mother. If Hange was about to use her ring, she might as well use her accessories.

"Beautiful," finished Mo at a whisper. He blushed a little as he continued with, "I'm glad you're my valentine, Hange."

Hange grinned, her even white teeth flashing in Mo's favorite smile. When he turned to grab their coats, she removed her hand from her ear and reached inside her dress's highly convenient pocket. She stroked a thumb over the velvet box, and her heart only stuttered a little at the feeling of its smooth surface.

 

* * *

 

"Leon..." Erwin couldn't believe it. "What are you doing here?"

"I was in town," said the shorter man vaguely. He didn't look as if he'd grown an inch, and his slick dark hair was styled in just the way that Erwin remembered it. But Leon's eyes were different; they were filled with something that Erwin didn't recognize at all.

He didn't know if he wanted to.

"How... How did you come by my restaurant?"

"Took a train."

"You know what I mean."

"Oh, well, you're pretty famous in most culinary circles. And I decided I needed to see your fancy digs for myself."

 _Oh._  "Were you planning on d-dining here?" Erwin hated the stupid stutter that had invaded his normally solid, confident voice. "I would be extremely happy to get you a table."

"Why?" asked Leon shortly.

"Because you're an old friend!"

"'Friend,' huh?"

"I..."

"Maybe later. Can I have a look around?"

 

* * *

 

"Mikasa!" Krista Lenz was racing towards her down the darkening street, forcing Mikasa to momentarily leave behind her examination of the enthralling Fifth Avenue window displays. Still, she couldn't help but smile at the sight of Armin's adorable cousin, who caught her up in a hug.

"It's so nice to see you!"

"You, too," Mikasa responded automatically, but it felt very genuine to her, which was surprising. She hadn't wanted to feel much at all after the train ride into the city about an hour before. She didn't want to think about her envy of Connie and Sasha's relationship... or Eren's silence.

But suddenly, everything was reminding her of Eren. Shiganshina Bookstores's large glass windows covered in posters declaring the release of a new  _Advancing Giants_  book, Krista's big blue eyes, and a box labeled "Yeager's Fine Ales" left beside the back door of Maria's Brewery all jumped out at her from the bustling crowds and attention-catching displays. Even the hazy memory of Armin telling her that Krista and Ymir had attended Military Academy, the school that that Annie girl went to, caused painful thoughts to surface.

"Hey there, Mikasa," entered a booming voice that could only belong to Ymir. Ymir the Giant, Eren called her upon first sight at that fateful Halloween party. That hadn't really endeared him to her. Neither had the rest of the night's events, come to think of it. "How you been?"

"Alright," she answered absentmindedly. She was still thinking of Eren, and still thinking about how it hurt. "And you?"

Ymir brushed that aside. "You clearly aren't alright, Mikasa," and it surprised her that it was so obvious. Was she really letting her emotions show so easily?

Krista looped a tiny arm through Mikasa's and gave her a tentative smile, and it was so adorable that Mikasa's slowly freezing heart seemed to thaw just a bit, despite the pressing city winds. "Let's go for a walk, and you can tell us everything, okay?"

"Where are we going?"

Mikasa was too wrapped up in Krista to notice Ymir's wicked expression. "Oh, let's head over to Museum Mile. I hear there's a Valentine's Day special deal on tickets at the Natural History."

 

* * *

 

"So... Annie..." Eren had no idea what to say.  _Math, cats, judo, travel._  Armin's words echoed in the back of his head.

"Er... Know where you're going to college yet?"

"You sound like my grandma," Annie said with her usual flatness, and Connie laughed.

"Eren's a grandma at heart."

"Shut it," Eren mumbled, his face growing warm. He hid it behind the menu and tried to focus on deciding between a too fancy steak or a too fancy shrimp platter... but it didn't matter. The words just weren't registering.

"I'm going to Johns Hopkins," she responded suddenly, and Eren was taken aback.

"Well, that's the kind of school I could never get into," he said, rather impressed. "Congratulations."

She just nodded, the light of the sumptuous chandeliers overhead reflecting brightly in her pale, glassy eyes.

Eren coughed a little. "And, er, Armin  _did_  call you a genius. Just so you know, he doesn't use that word often."

He could just make out a light blush dusting Annie's steep nose.  _Whoa. So she_ is _capable of human expression._

"What are you going to study there?" he tried, because the topic seemed somewhat successful so far. Also, Connie and Sasha had already returned to their own little bubble down the table, and he didn't really want to see it. It served as a reminder for everything that he didn't have.

"I want to get into medicine."

"Why's that?" he asked. He decided that the steak was a better option.

"I want to learn more about Titan-disease. My dad died of it, you see." She said it so nonchalantly, so casually, that he was shocked into wordlessness.

"I'm s-sorry," he choked out finally. "That's..."

"Awful, I know." She looked at the menu a little more closely. "That steak sure looks good."

 

* * *

 

The bell atop the Starbucks's entryway pinged cheerily as Jean aggressively threw open the door, earning a few appalled looks from the couples at the surrounding tables.  _Couples, couples, everywhere,_  he thought disgustedly.

Thankfully, the line was pretty short - there were only two guys in front of him. One was tree tall and beanstalk thin, with a thatch of dark hair and an olive complexion; the other was much fairer and bulkier, with strong eyes and a wide smile.

There was only one barista working the line. Jean didn't really get a glimpse of his face, but he could see from the boy's posture that he looked a bit harried. He added a final squirt of whipped cream to one of the drinks he was preparing and handed it off to the towering guy.

"Th-thanks," he mumbled, unjustifiably breaking out into a cold sweat.

"C'mon, Bertl, it's cool," smiled the barista, and Jean finally saw his face.

"Marco?"

 

* * *

 

"Do you know Annie Leonhart?" Mikasa began, wondering how much of the story she needed to tell. Was it really even a story at all?  _A boy goes on a blind date with a girl._  That was it.

_Wasn't it?_

Ymir's tanned, freckled nose wrinkled in distaste. "Ice queen," she muttered. "Can't  _stand_  that bitch-"

"Ymir!" Krista cried out, pinching her markedly taller girlfriend on the latter's lanky arm. "Don't be a sore loser!"

"What happened?" Mikasa asked, curious. The three girls were passing through Central Park now, and quickly so; the light was fading fast, and the wind was picking up in speed, whipping rawly against their exposed noses and ears. She pulled Eren's scarf tighter around her neck and tried to pretend that it was his strong, safe arm around her instead.

 _Delusional,_  she thought disgustedly to herself.

"Ymir ran for girl's wrestling team captain last year as a senior," Krista explained. "But Annie beat her out, even though she's younger than us by a year."

"Sorry," Mikasa offered.

Ymir yawned loudly, mumbling out a, "Doesn't matter anymore. I'm over it." But her dark eyes seemed to tell a different story.

They walked along in a companionable sort of silence for a few minutes, sporadically interrupted by the  _clop, clop_  of carriage horses' hooves, the animals' breath curling starkly through the growing darkness. Mikasa was just wondering if she should even bring Annie back up when Krista did it for her.

"So what's going on with Annie, Mikasa?"

"Well, you know how Armin had that math competition at NYU last week?"

"Yeah! I'm really happy that he brought his team the victory! I know his big mistake last year had really been bringing him down. I think this helped him regain his confidence."

Mikasa nodded affirmatively. "I'm really proud of him, too." She paused, thinking of how exactly to phrase her next remarks.

"So Armin met Annie at the competition. I think he recognized her from your party, Ymir-"

"Still can't  _believe_  she had the audacity to show up-"

"Let Mikasa finish, Ymir!"

"So they started talking a bit, and Armin brought Eren up in passing."

Ymir's dark eyes flashed in remembrance. "Ugh, Yeager. Did that scare dear old Annie away?" Mikasa's gloved hands balled into small fists at that, even though she knew that Ymir was just kidding.

Well, she  _thought_  she was kidding. It was always hard to tell - Ymir was pretty good at deadpanning.

"I don't think much scares Annie," Krista ruminated quietly. "Well, except Titan-disease. And she doesn't even really talk about that."

Mikasa looked over at the tiny girl then. "Titan-disease? Why would she be scared of T-d?" Suddenly, she felt a pang of guilt.

"Does she-"

"Have it?" Krista finished for her. "No." She sighed, eyeing a nearby streetlamp speculatively. "See, her dad..." But she trailed off and didn't finished her sentence.

"Her dad...?"

"Mikasa, how much do you know about Grisha Yeager's last medical mission five years ago?"

 _What does Eren's dad have anything to do with this?_  

"Enough?" Her answer sounded much more like a question than an affirmation.

"Well, Annie's father was on that mission, too. Big time New York surgeon. I think he was working at Langone doing biomedical research before he left for Africa. And he and Eren's dad were coworkers there."

Suddenly, everything was crashing down into place. "He _died_... didn't he? Mr. Leonhart?"

A tiny frown appeared on Ymir's stoic face as the tall girl nodded in confirmation.

"How do you know all this, Krista?" Mikasa asked quietly.

"Despite what Ymir says, Annie isn't a bad girl. She's just very... er, misunderstood. She doesn't have many people to talk to, because they basically see her and run. She's intimidating, and a good fighter. Nobody wants to mess with Annie Leonhart.

"But I just can't stand seeing people alone all the time," Krista continued earnestly. "So last year, when the news that her dad died broke and everyone was gossiping about it, I figured that it was time that someone reached out to her. I wanted to be that person. I wanted to be kind, and reliable, and friendly. I wanted her to feel needed, like somebody cared."

Ymir spit onto the frozen grass, then wiped off her mouth with her coat's graying sleeve. "Little angel woman," she whispered into Krista's ear, then plopped a big fat kiss on the latter's rosy cheek.

"I'm not an angel," Krista said softly. "I was just being a decent person."

Mikasa's heart bumped around uncomfortably in her chest as she remembered all of her ill will towards Annie. Before, she'd regarded the girl as a flat-out enemy; learning about her in more detail, however, had transformed her from a hated obstacle to...

 _Annie sounds a lot like me,_  she realized suddenly, thinking of the locker room girls and their cruel name-calling. 

_But at least I've always had people to talk to._

Something else that Krista had said flashed to the forefront of her mind right then. "Wait... if Annie's father knew Eren's, then..."

Streetlights began to flicker on around them as they passed below the waving boughs of bordering trees. Krista looked up at her, confused. "Then what?"

"Do you think she might know where Mr. Yeager is now?"

Ymir looked from Mikasa to Krista, and then back again, her face curling into a shit-eating sort of grin. "Can we tell her  _now_?"

 

* * *

 

"I thought you were a Dunkin' Donuts guy through and through," was all that Jean could say as Marco handed him a paper venti cup filled to the brim with straight-up caffeine goodness. 

 _Black, just like my poor tortured soul,_  he thought.

Marco wiped his hands off on his apron and rounded the counter to sit down next to his friend. The Starbucks had nearly emptied except for Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Hoover, two guys who attended Garrison High with him, and neither looked like they'd be ordering anything anytime soon, so he decided to take a break.

"I left Dunkin' because here's closer to that after-school tutoring place, you know, the one across the street?" Jean didn't know, but he nodded anyway. "I've been working on math with some middle school kids, and as the year went on, I just figured that this job would be more convenient."

Jean sighed into his coffee cup.  _Freckled Jesus, spending his spare time doing pre-algebra with a bunch of unappreciative little imps._  

"You're way too nice sometimes, you know that?"

He didn't catch his friend's blush as he practically inhaled his sacred beverage, ably ignoring the liquid pain of the heat coursing down his throat while chugging it down in a few swift gulps. He was a pretty practiced coffee drinker, after all.

"S-so. Um, what brings you here on this fine Valentine's Day?" The way that Marco stumbled slightly over those words peaked Jean's interest. He looked over at the other boy, wondering why he seemed so nervous.

"I'm seeing a movie with-" It was then that his iPhone suddenly lit up, and he jerked his hand towards its place on the table... causing him to spill hot coffee down the front of his jeans.

"Ah,  _shit_ ," he grumbled, knowing that it pretty much looked like he'd peed himself. "Just  _great_." He grasped the phone and dragged his thumb across its glassy surface, opening a new text message.

 

**From: Alert! It's Armin!**

_Is everything okay? The movie's about to start..._

 

Jean cursed again. In the midst of his soul-crushing, coffee-fueled angst, he'd totally ignored the time.

 

**To: Alert! It's Armin!**

_sorry i'm coming!! see ya in a few. did you get junior mints?? ;)_

**From: Alert! It's Armin!**

_Yes. And they aren't for you._

**To: Alert! It's Armin!**

_ok man way to kick me while i'm down._

 

He could practically see Armin rolling his eyes as he stuffed his phone back into his now-wet pocket. "Sorry, Marco," he began hastily, tossing his cup into a nearby trashcan. His eyes darted around the dim coffeehouse, searching out a napkin dispenser-

However, Marco had beaten him to it. The freckled barista reached across the table to shove a wad of scratchy brown papers into his hands-

But at that same moment, the other boy had begun to stand up. So instead of passing the napkins off into Jean's hands... Marco's gesture of goodwill promptly collided with his crotch.

 

* * *

 

"You still have the ICE cookbook," Leon remarked shortly, his thin, pale fingers dancing over its worn spine. Erwin tried his hardest not to imagine those same fingers delicately trailing down his own back...

...and failed miserably.

He coughed and straightened his tie beneath his now-unbuttoned chef's coat. "It was a good class," he responded rather stiffly.

Leon's eyes finally met his, and they were unrelentingly dark. "I remember," he said softly, and Erwin's heart seemingly jumped into his throat. "Do you ever use the recipes here at your restaurant?"

Erwin nodded, thinking of the Bavarian pretzels that were listed on tonight's appetizer menu. "Yes. I like how they seem pretty simple, but with unusual twists. The customers enjoy them, too. Especially the desserts, I think." He was just rambling on now, he knew, so his abrupt silence hung awkwardly over them, thick enough to resist even one of his sharpest steak knives.

However, Leon didn't seem to notice. He returned the cookbook to the shelf above Erwin's desk in the dim back office behind the restaurant's cavernous kitchen. "What's it like, Erwin?"

"What's what like?"

"Dedicating your entire life to this place," the shorter man clarified. He sounded so bored, Erwin didn't even know what to say.

"Well, I'm very lucky, I guess. Working here makes me very happy. I have a superb team, a great location... But it isn't my  _entire_  life," Erwin countered, thinking of time spent with Hange and Mo. 

"Got a wife, then?" Something had turned hard in Leon's tone, and he wouldn't meet Erwin's eyes. "Kids, too?"

"N-no," Erwin whispered. "Of course I don't, you must remember-"

"I remember," was all that Leon said, and then a small hand tugged him down by the tie and trapped his mouth with his.

 

* * *

 

Eren knew that his mouth was gaping open like an impolite fish's, but Annie's casual remarks about her father's death had hit him hard. He watched her icy eyes scan the rest of the dinner menu, wondering exactly what he should say and coming up with absolutely nothing. 

She must've felt his gaze on her, because she finally looked up and met it. "What?" was all she asked.

"I... nothing."

But suddenly, there was something kind on her face, and it shocked him. "Eren, it's okay. Just spit it out."

"My dad died of T-d, too," he blurted out in his customary abrupt fashion, causing Connie and Sasha to look over in surprise. "Well, I mean, we  _think_  he did. Died, that is. We... We haven't heard back from him since-"

"Africa," Annie finished for him. "I know."

"How...?"

"Because that's where  _my_  dad died. And your father was with him on that trip."

"My father..." Eren trailed off. Everything that Armin had told him about Annie hadn't prepared him for this kind of conversation. 

There was a question he wanted to ask then, but he wasn't at all sure if he wanted to hear its answer. It had been five years since Grisha Yeager had left his wife and son behind in America and traveled to the Congo to study the potential roots of the Titan-disease outbreak. And it had been five years since anyone had heard from him. Eren had pretty much given up hope - nearly half of T-d's victims didn't survive past the first year of onset - but now...

He knew that if he didn't ask now, he'd be left with so many what-ifs.  _But maybe things are better this way. Maybe ignorance_ is _bliss._

 _No._  He squared his shoulders and leaned forward, preparing himself-

 

* * *

 

"I messed up, didn't I?" Marco's face had fallen into his hands a long time ago, his dark fringe falling across his eyes screwed shut in mortified embarrassment.

"Well..." Bertholdt hemmed, looking across the table at his boyfriend for some much-needed advice.

Reiner cupped his chai in response and took a big swig. It might have surprised some of his fans that Garrison High's star quarterback absolutely loved tea, but Reiner didn't really care. He'd always been extremely confident in himself, and although he often came off as slightly arrogant, many admired this quality in him - it made him steadfast, honest, and unafraid. So even though some of the guys joked around about his "grandma tendencies," he would never give up his favorite drink.

"Maybe the high-pitched squeaking wasn't the best possible reaction," he began sagely. "Or the mad dash to hide behind the counter. Or-"

"Ugh," Marco groaned, effectively cutting him off. "I'm never going to be able to face him again!" He looked up at Reiner desperately. "What do I do?"

"Leave New Jersey and never come back?"

"Not funny, Reiner."

"I know, I know." He looked over at his boyfriend. "Bertl, what do you think?"

A customary droplet of sweat ran wild down Bertholdt's temple. "Um, I-I..." He sized up Marco's dejected expression. "Marco, you really like this guy, right?"

"We-ell," Marco stalled. "I mean, it's just..."

"What?"

"I don't know him very well. You know Connie Springer? He goes to Survey across town. We met through track last year, and a few months ago, he introduced me to Jean at a meet." He was talking pretty quickly now, and a knowing smile lit up Reiner's face. "He's a really good runner, he's funny, he's easy to talk to-"

"Just marry him already," Reiner interjected.

"Reiner!" Bertholdt scolded. "Don't make him feel worse!"

"Okay, okay." Reiner leaned back in his chair, over-muscled arms crossing his over-muscled chest. "Well, do you think he's into you?"

Marco sighed, twisting his freckled thumbs together. "I mean, he gave me his number. We even text sometimes, and we've hung out together before with Connie and some of the other track guys. But..." He trailed off and sighed once more. "I don't think so. I'm even ninety-nine point five percent sure that he's the straightest guy in the world. He's even at the movies with someone tonight, he told me so. I can hazard a guess that it's Mikasa Ackerman. Everyone knows he's into her..."

"She's pretty hot," Reiner agreed affirmatively, and Marco's face fell. "But unapproachable looking," he amended quickly upon seeing Marco's expression. "Jean probably doesn't even know her that well. Don't lose hope, Marco."

"And besides, Mikasa's in love with Eren Yeager, isn't she?" Bertholdt cut in his usual quiet manner.

"Eren Yeager? That angry kid?" Reiner hummed speculatively. "Oh, isn't he the one that Ymir punched on Halloween?"

"Yeah," Bertholdt nodded. "I respect that. She had it comin'.

"Anyway... Armin Arlert, he's another Survey kid, told Krista, who told Ymir, who told Annie, who told me."

"Wow, Bertl, aren't you the gossip king of the tristate area!"

Bertholdt blushed and sweated some more.

 

* * *

 

Erwin was _happy_ , happier than he'd been in God knows how many years. Leon's lips were unyielding yet soft, molding perfectly to his own, and his tongue had long ago worked its way through the seam of his lips, steadily probing through its well-known territory. He let out a tiny groan as the other man's hips rolled up against his, the friction sending hot jolts of pleasure throughout his entire system.

"Leon..." he whispered as he fell backwards a little more against the desk. "Leon..."

_AH!_

His hands had slipped beneath Erwin's suit jacket, and as his body warmed, he decided that the garment was much too excessive and needed to be removed immediately. As he did so, Leon clutched at his belt buckle, dexterously undoing the clasp and reaching downwards-

There was a knock at the door, and both men jumped, Erwin practically falling over as he did so.

"Erwin? Erwin? Are you in there?"

"Who?" Leon breathed.

"It's Dot Pixis. He owns the restaurant," Erwin responded unsteadily, his eyes never leaving Leon's uncharacteristically flushed face. It was just like old times, living in the dorm at ICE for the summer, sneaking into each other's rooms at night, doing... everything, really. Leon had taught him everything he knew, and in that moment, all he wanted was to learn even more.

"I..." Erwin began, and the other man seemed to know immediately what he was going to say, because he stepped away, his hands trailing off of his belt buckle and to his sides.

"I get it," Leon said. "You have duties to attend to."

"Leon, please..."

He looked up, dark eyes flashing. "What?"

"Please. Don't leave me." He said it before he could stop himself, and he hated how needy he sounded.

The storm clouds quieted just a bit, but he still looked... upset.

"We'll talk later." He gestured towards the door. "Go get it."

Erwin shrugged back on his jacket and straightened his tie. "Come in, Dot," he called out, hoping he sounded much calmer than he felt.

A shiny, bald head appeared in the doorway, wise old eyes traveling across the two faces. Erwin didn't know how much his boss could see, though, and he suddenly felt ashamed. He was being selfish, hiding away behind closed doors while his team worked tirelessly in the kitchens on one of the busiest nights of the year.

But all Dot seemed to be was pleasantly surprised. "Ah, Erwin. I see you've met Levi Ackerman!"

Erwin's eyes widened to the size of the 49 Rock's fanciest dinner plates. "Who?" was all he could dumbly ask.

Leon sighed quietly. "He's talking about me, Erwin. I'm Levi... the food critic."

Erwin was stunned speechless, and Dot's old eyes noticed it. "Is everything okay, Erwin?" he asked gently.

"Y-yes," Erwin stuttered, looking anywhere but at Leon.  _Levi_ , he corrected himself.  _He's_ Levi _._  

"I'm fine, just... I didn't realize you were here tonight, Dot, that's all." He offered up a false smile. "It's really nice to see you again."

Dot winked. "Managing the White House's kitchens is a high time, but there's nothing quite like New York City on Valentine's Day. Would you agree?"

Erwin cleared his throat nervously. "I..." Maybe a few hours ago, he would've said yes. Before Hange had called him "forever alone," before she'd told him that she wanted to propose to Mo, before he'd walked down Fifth Avenue and played witness to all of the happy couples wrapped up in each other and the holiday spirit.

_But now..._

So all he responded with was, "It seems so to me."

Dot just looked at him, and once again, Erwin wondered how much he really knew. But in Dot's eyes, Erwin and Leon-now-Levi had just met each other that evening. He had no idea that they were old lovers... right?

"I'd like to order a meal now, Chef Smith," said Levi Ackerman somewhat imperiously, and Erwin flinched at the usage of the formal title.

"O-of course, Mr. Ackerman," he responded in kind. "Right this way." He led the two men out of the dim office and into the bright kitchen, which no longer seemed as friendly as it had before.

 

* * *

 

"Are you okay, Jean?" Armin asked slowly as he took in his friend's pale face. "You look kinda... jumpy."

"W-what?" Jean said, hazel eyes darting nervously around the theater's lobby and not even paying attention to Armin's tempting box of Junior Mints. "I'm fine, I'm fine."

"Hey, Jean!" shouted a voice from across the crowded room. "Jean!"

There stood Thomas Wagner, a boy from school well-known for his ridiculous sideburns. He had an arm flung around Mina Carolina, his long-time girlfriend. 

"Hey, man," Jean offered. "What's up?"

"About to see  _Vampire Academy_. You?"

"Um...  _Robocop_ ," Jean said.  _What in the hell is_ Vampire Academy _? Is it another one of those_ Twilight _movies?_

Then he remembered Armin awkwardly standing behind him. He gestured to his friend, saying, "You know Armin, right?"

Thomas squinted closely at Armin, then shook his head. "Uh, don't think so, but hey, nice to meet you!" He stuck out a hand to shake, and Jean noticed Armin's slightly upset expression.

"We've been in classes together since grade school. You sit behind me in Econ," he said quietly.

Thomas coughed inelegantly. "Uh..."

"Hi, Jean," Mina cut in somewhat shyly, twirling a single dark pigtail around her slender pointer finger. "How are you?"

"Been better," he commented darkly.

"You know, we just saw you in Starbucks! We called out your name, but you didn't see us. Who was that guy you were talking with?"

Jean's face turned bright red. "Uh," he said dumbly.

"Oh, look, the movie's about to start!" Armin cut in quickly, and Jean let out a sigh of relief. "Jean, let's get your ticket." He turned towards the couple. "Maybe we'll see you in the theater?"

"Okay," Thomas answered, oblivious to Jean's strange expression. "See ya around!"

Once they had disappeared, Armin pulled on his friend's arm, wanting to get his full attention. "C'mon, Jean, what's going on with you? Is this still about Mikasa?"

"N-no..."

"Then what happened? You're freaking me out, Jean!"

"It's just, I... Ugh. I ran into this barista guy at Starbucks that Connie introduced me to awhile ago, and something... er...  _happened_."

"Who was it?" Armin asked curiously. They reached the ticket counter, and Jean fished out a couple of crumpled bills to hand to the attendant. They then made their way down the hallway, where a harried worker barely looked their way as they handed off their tickets and headed towards the theater.

"His name's M-Marco. Marco Bott."

"So what happened with him?"

Suddenly, Jean's eyes went wild, and he pulled Armin into the little alcove that led to the bathrooms. "Hetouchedmydick!"

Armin's nose wrinkled. "He... what?"

"He. Touched. My. Dick," Jean clarified, enunciating each word in a frantic whisper.

Armin blanched. He hadn't been expecting that in the slightest. "Jean, you need to report that!" he said angrily. "Workers shouldn't sexually harass their customers-"

"Quiet, Armin!" Jean interrupted, looking every which way over his shoulders to make sure that no one was listening in. "Besides, it was an accident. I think. He was just giving me some napkins, and I moved too quickly, and... yeah."

"Oh, okay," Armin said, relieved. "Well, if it was an accident, what's the big deal?"

"Because, because... Ugh, Armin, I can't believe I'm telling you this..."

"Just spit it out, Jean." Suddenly, Armin was feeling very, very tired. "I want to go watch Alex Murphy shoot up some bad guys."

Jean rubbed the back of his neck with a somewhat shaking hand. He didn't seem to be able to look Armin in the eye as he said, "Well, it's a big deal because... I liked it."

"What?" Armin cried out, and Jean smushed his hand none too gently into his friend's face.

"Jshannn-"

"Just be cool, Armin," Jean whispered unsteadily. "Just be cool!" To Armin, it sounded as if Jean was trying to convince himself of this, too.

"Jean..." Armin's voice trailed off, not knowing what to stay. He suddenly noted just how scared Jean looked, his eyes wild and his hands running nervously through his already mussed hair. "Jean, calm down. It's going to be okay." He laid what he hoped was a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder, and he felt relieved when the other boy didn't flinch away.

"Armin, it's just... I don't know what to do!" His chest was heaving up and down, up and down. "An hour ago I was in love with Mikasa Ackerman. Agirl. I've always been so sure that she's the one I want to be with, but now..."

"Now what?" Armin asked quietly.

"Now... Armin, promise you'll never repeat what I'm about to tell you?"

"I promise," his friend responded solemnly.

Jean drew in a deep breath and looked directly into Armin's large blue eyes. "Armin, I think I've always known. And the whole Mikasa thing... I think it was just a front, really. I was so obsessed with her because, because..."

"Because what, Jean?"

"Armin... I wanted to believe it. I really did. That I'm one hundred percent straight. But." He paused, licking his lips and wondering how exactly he should say it.

But all he could think of was a simple, "Armin, I think I'm gay."

 

* * *

 

"Ymir, what are you talking about?" Mikasa asked, feeling somewhat angry. "What are you keeping from me?"

Ymir let out a rather undignified squeak and rushed to hide behind her girlfriend. It didn't do much; Krista was about half her size, and the freckled giant remained clearly visible. "Blame Armin!" she cried out. "He's the mastermind behind all of this!"

"No, he isn't!" Krista retorted, pushing Ymir away. "Wow, I am never letting you in on anything ever again, Ymir!"

Mikasa ignored this exchange. All she could think was, Armin, a mastermind? Sure, Armin was smart - probably one of the smartest people she knew. But the way Ymir said it, it sounded a lot like Armin was some kind of manipulative villain hiding in the shadows while stroking his pet cat and trying on different eye patches.

Or something like that.

She shook her head at these strange images and focused all of her attention on Krista. "What's going on?"

Krista sighed heavily. "You weren't supposed to find out like that. Good going, Ymir." The sarcasm in the tiny girl's voice surprised Mikasa; she would never have suspected her of having such an attitude.

Ymir looked genuinely apologetic. "Sorry, sorry," she huffed, brushing her jagged dark fringe to the side. "I was getting impatient!"

Krista just rolled her eyes at this, but she seemed to have come to terms with the sudden turn of events, because she took Mikasa by the elbow once again and led her down the darkened street. Museum of Natural History, read a nearby sign. 0.25 Miles.

"Mikasa, we invited you out tonight because we knew that Eren would be here in the city, too. And yes, Armin did tell us that part of it. He wanted you to be here," she explained. "But we also wanted to see you," she amended hastily as she took in Mikasa's confused expression. "We love seeing you!

"But Armin asked us to do it because he kinda knows... well, we _all_ know, really..." Krista continued hesitantly, a slight blush crossing her perfectly pert nose.

"Know what?" Mikasa asked, and it came out a lot harsher than she had meant it to.

"That you're in love with Eren!" Ymir proclaimed cheerfully, and suddenly, it seemed as if the entire world was brought to a standstill.

 

* * *

 

"No, Oluo! It's table forty-nine first! We need them to clear out, they've already been here for nearly two hours! I need that space emptied!"

"Table six asked for the dessert menu nearly fifteen minutes ago! I'm running late and it's all your fault!"

Nanaba threw the arguing pair a nasty look as she whisked away at a bowl of fresh whipped cream. "Would you two babies stop bickering for just a second and help me out with service? If you haven't noticed, I'm kinda chained to my station for the rest of the night, so I can't do it all on my own!"

Nearby, Eld was arranging an array of sauces and creams around a platter of meats and cheeses. He glared over in their direction as he echoed with, "Nanaba's right, you two! Just cut it out, or else I'll get Erwin down here to sort you out!"

"Tattle tale!" Oluo muttered under his breath, but he complied. "Fine, forty-nine. Here, give me those." He pointed at a stack of dessert menus placed neatly atop a nearby shelf.

Petra shot him a dark look. "Say 'please,' and I just might consider it!"

"Petra-" He went to grab for the menus, but Petra beat him to it, and a makeshift game of tug-of-war ensued. Just when it looked like Oluo had the upper hand, though, his opponent gave an unexpectedly hard tug, and-

 _CRASH!_  The pair fell to the floor in a mixed-up heap of body parts and fancy menus, and Oluo's outstretched arm managed to trip a passing Mike, who had been concentrating on safely transporting a tray full of soups to Gunther's area.

Petra blinked, her orangey hair dripping with a similarly-shaded spiced carrot broth.

"Oluo," she grumbled through gritted teeth, but the person in question didn't seem particularly fazed until Mike appeared in the corner of his vision.

The sous chef set what remained of the soups aside and swooped downwards to easily pull them both to their feet. He towered over them, face darkly displeased.

"I don't know what's going on with you two tonight, but I don't like it. You're being selfish, lazy, and troublesome, and you haven't done a speck of real work." He looked them deep in the eyes then, and Petra desperately wanted to cringe away from that disappointed stare.

"So, if you aren't going to do your job, then the kitchen doesn't need you tonight. You're dismissed. Hand the menus off to Dieter, he'll take care of them until closing."

Oluo's mouth hung open. Petra would have laughed at his stupid expression if they'd been under different circumstances, but that wasn't the case.

"But Mike-" he began, looking petulant.

"No buts, Oluo," Mike interrupted impatiently, pinching the bridge of his pronounced nose. "If you aren't going to be a team player, then you don't deserve to be on the team. So, out with you." He waved them away with a semi-dramatic gesture, and once again, Petra had to fight the strange urge to laugh.

"All I was going to say was," Oluo countered, an unprecedented fire in his stare, "Don't dismiss Petra. It was all my fault, I was trying to get a rise out of her. Blame me, and me only."

Petra was absolutely, positively shocked. She looked over at her coworker, but he failed to meet her eyes; he was too busy staring Mike down.

Mike hummed, looking somewhat impressed. "Okay, Bozado, I understand. But I want you _both_ to learn a lesson," he said, gaze skimming over Petra's still-surprised expression, "So I'm going to stand by what I said. You're off duty for the rest of the night, dig it?"

"Dug," Oluo muttered. He still wouldn't look at Petra.

 

* * *

 

"Jean..." Armin said slowly. "Jean, that's..."

Suddenly, Jean felt like he was going to cry, and in public to boot. Jean wasn't a crier. Boys don't cry, his father had always said, and that message had been drilled into his head since he was a little kid. But what if Armin was about to reject him? Tell him he was disgusting? Tell him that he didn't want to be friends anymore-

"Jean, I'm really glad that you felt comfortable enough to tell me that," was what Armin said instead. "You should know that I totally support you in every way."

Jean blinked. He felt as if he was imagining Armin's words. "You're... okay with it?"

Armin gave him a funny look. "Well, why wouldn't I be?" he responded, and Jean's heart did a little happy dance right there inside of his chest.

"Because... I dunno..."

"It's just who you are, Jean. Being gay isn't something you can just, I don't know, turn off. You can't turn off your gay-"

Jean burst out laughing then. He couldn't help it. He was just so, so relieved. But then he noticed Armin's expression and quickly sobered up.

"Jean, it's just... Look, I'm not doubting you for a minute here. I understand. But this all seems very, very sudden, and... Are you totally ready to dismiss your feelings for Mikasa, just like that? Because I know how long you've had them, and they always seemed pretty genuine to me..."

Armin was right, Jean realized. Was he moving too fast with this? Was it just a momentary reaction to-

Well, he wasn't quite ready to think about that.

But then he remembered the night of Ymir's Halloween party, the first time he'd really hung out with Marco in a social setting. As it had stretched on, he'd found himself spending more and more time with the other boy, and when their hostess had ungraciously kicked them out at six in the morning, he recalled feeling an enormous sense of disappointment at the fact that the night was over.

Because he liked Marco. He really did. Marco listened to him, put up with his snark, laughed at his bad jokes. He made Jean feel good just by sitting down next to him.

 _No. No, I'm not moving too fast. Because for the first time in forever, I feel really sure of myself,_  he thought.  _I've always known that this is who I am. I just can't keep denying it. It isn't fair to Mikasa, to Eren... to_ me _._

"Armin, I think I'm gonna need to take a rain check on our date," he said suddenly, almost laughingly, and he gave his friend's arm a quick pat. "I need to go talk to someone."

"Jean!" Armin's big blue eyes went even wider than usual in shock.

"Just... I'm sorry, okay?" He wanted to do this before he chickened out, before he could pass it all off as a crazy, caffeine-fueled delusion. "I'll make it up to you, I promise-"

"Jean," Armin repeated, looking his friend in the eye. "I don't need your excuses. Just do what you need to do."

As he watched his friend tear off down the hallway, he looked sadly down at the pair of movie tickets. He was happy for Jean, truly happy, but he was feeling envious of the other boy's newfound ability to be honest with himself.

If only he had been just as brave seven days ago.

 

* * *

 

"Levi?" was all Eren said instead.

"Who?" Annie turned around in her seat, looking genuinely surprised.

Connie leaned in closer to Eren and followed his line of sight to witness the small, dark man take a seat just below one of the restaurant's sumptuous chandeliers, dripping with crystals the size of the roasted chicken they had decided to order as a table (although Sasha was making pretty quick work of it on her own). "Hey, isn't that Mikasa's uncle-cousin-dude?"

"He's her second cousin, I think," Eren answered, watching Mikasa's relative flip through the wine menu with slender, pale fingers. "His last name's Ackerman, so he must be related to her father somehow, but he insists that people call him Levi."

"Kinda like Rihanna," Sasha put in as she munched on a chicken leg.

"I wouldn't tell him that to his face, Sash," Eren warned. "He's pretty scary for such a short guy." He turned his attention back towards Levi, but the latter was suddenly nowhere to be found.

"Wait, where-"

"I'd rather be called 'Rihanna' than 'short,' Mr. Yeager," came a sudden voice at his shoulder, and Eren let out an undignified squeak.

"Well, this is awkward," Connie mumbled under his breath, and from around her second chicken wing, Sasha nodded in agreement.

 

* * *

 

"Why'd you do it"?" Petra asked him as Oluo turned his moped's ignition on. The sleek bike rumbled to life, the sound bouncing loudly around the narrow brick walls of the kitchen's back alley, and he swung a leg onto it, his back to her.

"Don't worry about it."

"I'm not worrying about it," Petra retorted. "I just want to know, that's all!"

"Good night, Petra-"

"No!" Before she could really think about what she was doing, she had jumped in front of his bike, arms splayed ridiculously in the air in front of him. The single headlight of the moped shone brilliantly against her bright hair, heightening the flash in her honey eyes. "No! Don't you dare 'good night' me, Oluo Bozado-"

She didn't have a chance to finish her sentence, because somehow, his lips had found hers.

 

* * *

 

"So what do you guys think I should do?" Marco pleaded. He was a good worker, and his boss already trusted him to close up the shop. It was around nine o'clock, and he assumed nobody else would be wanting coffee at this time of night. Besides, all he wanted to do was get home and hide under his covers forever.

Anything to avoid Jean Kirstein for the rest of his life.

Reiner let out a manly sort of grunt as he watched Marco fumble with the lock. "I don't know, Marco. In the end, it's really up to you.

"But if you're going to get so worked up over the whole thing... why don't you just talk to him about it? And then, maybe you can finally tell him how you feel?"

"What?" Marco squeaked, nearly dropping his key. Reiner observed his deer in the headlights look and began to feel a bit uncomfortable. He had never been great with advice in the romance department...

"Well, I dunno," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "That's what I did with Bertl, and it worked out pretty well for us, if you can't already tell."

"You did? Just like that?" Marco whispered, awestruck. But then his face fell. "But you're much more confident than I'll ever be, Reiner. I just don't know..."

Bertholdt looked at him kindly, stooping just a little to meet his friend's darkened eyes, and for once, he didn't appear to be sweating. "Look, Marco, here's the thing. Reiner was actually pretty uncomfortable when he asked me out. We'd been best friends for years, and he was scared that he might ruin that friendship."

Reiner nodded in agreement. "Also, I wasn't out yet. See, I was always afraid of what everyone at school might think. Reiner Braun, the football player, gay? It sounded so... disappointing." He sighed, and Bertholdt comfortingly stretched a long arm around his boyfriend's stocky shoulders.

"But you know what I realized? Being with Bertl... it just makes me so happy. Coming out to him was one of the best moments of my life." Bertholdt's face was on fire as he listened to Reiner's words, but his smile was wider than Marco had ever seen it.

"So in that moment, I knew. I knew that being with Bertl was the best decision I could make, no matter what anyone else said about it." He grinned up at Bertholdt. "If something makes you that happy, well, then nothing else should matter.

"And, of course, it's a really hard thing to do, coming out to the rest of the world. It's hard to be crooked in a world that caters to the straight. Believe me, I know." He sighed, looking a little sad. "My dad wouldn't look me in the eye nearly a year after he found out. But I think he realized somewhere down the line that being gay didn't make me a different person. I'm gay just as much as my hair is blond and I really like tea. It's just something that's a part of me. Always has been, always will be."

Marco smiled a little. "Okay, thanks, guys. That makes me feel a bit better, but..."

Suddenly, it seemed as if Reiner wasn't really listening to him - his eyes seemed to be trained on something behind Marco - but he kept up the conversation anyway. "But what?"

"Well, I don't want to, er, scare Jean away. What if he treats me differently? What if he's, I don't know, weirded out?" Marco was talking quickly now, all of his thoughts and fears spilling from his mouth like a waterfall. "I mean, as far as I know, he's totally straight, so I should respect that, and besides, we really aren't that close-"

"Marco, you like Jean, right?"

"...Yeah."

"You wanna be with him, right?"

Marco blushed and ran a hand through his mess of ink-dark hair. "Well, yeah."

"And why's that?"

"I told you already! He's smart, and funny, and kind when no one's really looking, and he has a nice laugh, and I like his eyes, and he's so cute when he smiles, and-"

"Marco," said a voice softly from behind him, but he didn't even need to turn around to find out who its owner was. He already knew.

 

* * *

 

"That's crazy!" Mikasa exclaimed after a short, stilted silence. "I'm not in love with Eren! He's like my brother-"

"Ah, but he isn't!" Ymir crowed.

"Mikasa," Krista began kindly. "Just... be honest with yourself."

In response, Mikasa just looked upwards towards the sky. It was officially night now, and clouds hung heavily overhead, roaming the darkness like wayward sheep. Suddenly, she blinked; something moist and cold had just landed on her cheek.

"Snow," she whispered to herself. And she was right - the first flakes had just begun to fall.

In that moment, it all seemed so clear. She was in love with Eren. She _loved_ him! But-

 _What do I do now?_  she thought hopelessly.

It was hard enough to admit it to herself; she was beyond scared to tell her two friends. So she hedged, "I... ugh. Maybe-"

Ymir gave her a look.

"Fine! I'm in love with Eren!" she shouted, drawing a few stares from passersby. If only the track girls could see me now, she thought to herself.'Emotionless.' Hah!

"But it doesn't matter," she continued much more quietly, reaching out a hand to catch a snowflake. She stared at the tiny crystal slowly losing form as it came into contact with her warm hands. "He's on a date with Annie, and that's that."

"Well, Annie likes Armin, so none of that really matters either, does it?"

Mikasa turned on Krista in a flash. Her heart was beating so rapidly that she feared it would take flight from her tightened chest. "What? What are you saying?"

"Just... hold on and I'll prove it to you. You'll see."

 

* * *

 

"Um..." Eren gulped. "Hey there, Mr. Ack- I mean, Levi."

Levi's slate eyes were frighteningly blank as he appraised Eren and company. But all he said was, "Hello, Yeager. How's my little cousin?"

"She's good," Sasha said, answering for him. "She's out with some friends at the Museum of Natural History."

Eren blinked.  _A museum?_  Mikasa hadn't mentioned that. Then again, they hadn't been talking very much lately... His throat constricted at that thought.

"What strange Valentine's Day plans," Levi mused. "How do you know Miss Leonhart?"

It took him a few moments to realize that Levi was speaking to him. "Oh, we only just met," Eren explained.

"They're on a blind date," Connie confirmed. "Emphasis on  _blind_."

Levi just looked at him. "Sorry," Connie mumbled, and returned to picking apart a slender filet drenched in tangy green peppercorn sauce. Eren sighed, noticing the growing pyramid of plates upon plates that rose from Connie and Sasha's side of the table. He didn't even want to think about how much it would all cost when the night was over.

"I met a friend of Eren's at the NYCIML meet last week," Annie told Levi.

"Wait, how do you two know each other?" Eren asked.

"I used to be a professor at Military Academy, but I left town a few years ago. Wanted a change of scenery."

"...Oh. Well, I'll tell Mikasa I saw you."

"Good." Levi eyed him speculatively. "You know, Yeager, I'm surprised to see you out and about on Valentine's Day without Mikasa. I always thought you had a thing for her."

Connie burst out laughing, but Sasha looked somewhat upset at Levi's words. "That isn't very fair, Mr. Ackerman," she said stoutly. "Don't ever make any assumptions until you've heard all sides of the story."

This effectively shut up Connie, who now seemed very interested in his plate of shoestring fries. Eren wondered what his friend was thinking, but he'd have to save that for later, because Levi's words were echoing through his head.

_I always thought you had a thing for her._

He tried to sound as pleasant as possible as he lied, "I'm sorry, Mr. Ackerman, sir, but... I think you're wrong." Sasha's eyes widened at this, but she didn't comment.

Levi wasn't even listening, though, he noticed. The older man's eyes were too busy following a tall, well-built figure with neatly-combed blond hair make his way around the dining room, occasionally stopping to talk with various patrons, who all received him well. He reminded Eren of someone he'd seen on the cover of a book, but he just couldn't place him.

"Hey, isn't that Erwin Smith?" Sasha suddenly pointed out. "He's the head chef here! In fact, he's one of the most renowned chefs in the country, maybe even the world!"

"How'd you know that?" Eren asked.

"I like reading cooking magazines, okay?" she said defensively. "See, he's good because he's extremely diverse. He's just as skilled with seafood as he is with red meat, and he handpicked his entire kitchen team from the top culinary schools in the country, and-"

"Don't ever make any assumptions until you've heard all sides of the story," Levi suddenly interrupted. "Someone told me that once." 

Eren, Connie, and Sasha all traded glances with each other; Annie was too busy picking the olives out of her salad to care.

"Have a good rest of your night, kids," Levi said, and with that, he stalked off towards the man in the white chef's coat, leaving the three friends to stare after him in confused silence.

"Briny balls of rubber," Annie muttered in the quiet he left behind. "I hate olives."

 

* * *

 

"Is everything alright, Hange, dear?" Mo asked somewhat nervously. "You've just been so... quiet."

Hange dragged a peppered fry through a trail of honest-to-goodness ketchup. If there was one thing that she loved about Erwin, it was that he wasn't too uppity to serve ketchup, no matter how swanky his restaurant appeared. "I'm fine, Mo. I promise, it's just..." Suddenly, she spied her best friend meandering through the restaurant's series of tables, exchanging polite words and even handshakes with eager guests. She could even make out his bemused expression as he signed a napkin for one excitable woman, who tucked in safely away into her purse like it was a chunk of pure gold.

"Excuse me, Mo, just for a moment," Hange said hurriedly, and she made a mad dash for Erwin.

Erwin jolted a little when he felt a strong hand suddenly land on his elbow. He twisted around to look into the face of his roommate. She seemed strangely pale, and he decided he better give her a few moments of his time. It wasn't like he was too invested in the night's proceedings anymore, anyway; there was nothing like finding out that his old boyfriend Leon was in fact the food critic that he had been dreading for the past day and a half.

"I apologize," he said politely to the guests he'd been talking to. "If you would excuse me."

They nodded enthusiastically. Anything for Manhattan's most famous chef!

"Hange, what's going on? You're scaring me!" He barely had time to spit out those few words as she dragged him towards the kitchens, desperately seeking out any form of private space where she could clear her head.

"Erwin, I was wrong! I can't propose to Mo! I'm not good at stuff like this!"

"Stuff like... what? Proposing to people?"

"Well, yeah!"

"But you've never proposed to anyone before! How do you know that you won't be good at it?"

"Erwin," Hange whined, looking rather like Erwin's childhood puppy - all big eyes and soft brown hair.

He grabbed both of her shoulders, looking her square in the face. "Hange. You love Mo, right?"

"Yes, of course!"

"You want to be with him?"

"Without question."

"Then, what's holding you back?"

Hange looked sad, her eyes downcast. It was such an atypical expression for her, Erwin's heart fell, too. "It's just... what if he says no?"

Erwin blinked.  _What if he says no?_

He drew his hands away from Hange and took a deep, deep breath. "Hange, can I tell you something, something that only one other person in this world knows?"

Hange seemed confused, but she nodded. "Go ahead."

"Hange... I'm gay."

Her laughter was the last thing Erwin expected in a million years. "Sorry, 'win, but that wasn't much of a surprise."

"What...?"

She reached up to tweak him on the nose, staring at him with kind eyes. "You left a pretty obvious trail. Maybe I should teach you how to properly delete your internet history."

Erwin's face turned the exact shade of the ketchup he kept in the kitchens just because he knew that Hange loved it. "Oh, no..."

This made her laugh even more, and she tugged him into one of her signature bear hugs, squeezing the life out of him. But in that moment, he was so happy, none of it mattered.

But once they drew apart, she looked a lot more serious. "So... what's the end of the story?"

"Oh, right." Erwin paused, thinking. "Well, that's exactly what I thought. 'What if he says no?'" He trailed off, remembering the last night of ICE and the worst decision he made in his entire life - letting Levi go.

"Once upon a time, that same self-doubt stopped me from admitting my feelings to  _the_  one. The one who, even then, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

"So," he finished, "Get out there and tell  _your_  one the truth. Make a choice with no regrets!"

She had seemed raring to go as he had told his story, but as he finished, she looked even more terrified than she had before. "I-I... I just can't!"

Erwin smiled benevolently down at her. "Would you like to practice on me?"

Hange cocked her head, considering. "Well, why not?" she answered slowly. She reached into her amazing dress's wonderful pockets and withdrew the delicate velvet box. She proceeded to kneel and then flipped the lid, the ring's tiny diamond winking beneath the kitchen's bright industrial lighting.

"Moblit Berner..." she began, giggling slightly. Neither of them noticed the kitchen's door begin to open in that moment.

"Will you marry me?"

There was an audibly sharp intake of breath just as she uttered those words, and the two ill-fated actors turned just in time to see a shocked Mo standing stock-still amidst a flurry of culinary movement.

 

* * *

 

**To: My favorite ice queen <33**

_How's it going?? Can't wait to see you!!!!_

**From: My favorite ice queen <33**

_ugh, blind dates suck big hairy ballzz_

**To: My favorite ice queen <33**

_Thanks for the mental image -_- But srsly!!_

**From: My favorite ice queen <33**

_we're just finishing up, be there in a few. nat history, rite?_

**To: My favorite ice queen <33**

_Yess!! ...Also, did Eren ask...?_

**From: My favorite ice queen <33**

_...no. he didn't. were interrupted._

**To: My favorite ice queen <33**

_Maybe he doesn't want to know, in the end :/_

**From: My favorite ice queen <33**

_if he brings it up again, i'll see. i want to b nice about it, its weird, i don't really mind him_

**To: My favorite ice queen <33**

_lol soooo he doesn't suck '"big hairy ballzz?"_

**From: My favorite ice queen <33**

_...cant believe YOU just wrote that_

 

Krista's phone darkened, and she smiled up at her friends. "We'll be seeing them soon, ladies."

Ymir nodded. "Let's get girlfriend over here a ticket! Operation Eremika!"

"Ugh, I can't believe you've already given us a stupid portmanteau-thingie," Mikasa grumbled, but at the same time, she looked somewhat pleased.

 

* * *

 

Eren didn't know Manhattan very well, but even he seemed to know that they were going the wrong way. "Isn't Penn near Columbus Circle or something?" he asked suspiciously as they trudged down what felt like miles of pitfall-filled sidewalks.

Annie looked up at him innocently. "Isn't a New York native the better person for navigating her hometown? Or something?"

Connie laughed, pulling his coat tighter around his shoulders. It had begun to snow, and his bald head wasn't helping him in the slightest to keep in precious body heat. "I like the way you manage him, Annie."

Eren rolled his eyes. "Okay, Connie. Way to be a good friend."

Sasha looked down at her watch somewhat anxiously. She never went anywhere without it - somehow, its mere presence kept her calm. "Guys, we need to hurry. The nine o'clock is leaving soon, and I wanna get home."

Connie's heart plummeted, thinking of the box that he'd left in Jean's van. "Oh... I thought we were going to hang out at my place?"

She gave him a deer in the headlights look. "I... I can't. I need to sleep because, um, I'm busy. Tomorrow."

He couldn't believe it. "No, you aren't," was his first reaction. Sasha always slept in like the dead on Saturday mornings.

"You don't know me," she tried jokingly in response, wiggling her pointer finger in the air in front of her boyfriend's face, but the gesture fell flat, and Eren was beginning to feel exceedingly awkward.

"Annie, seriously, let's get to the station. Jean and Armin are waiting to pick us up, and I think their movie ends around eleven-thirty. I don't want them waiting for us for too long."

Annie suddenly looked upset (although her version of upset came off as a more "mildly annoyed" sort of expression). "I... okay. Just bear with me for a few more blocks."

The snow was falling faster and thicker now, the sky a salmon color and the streetlights' beams filled with flakes. The foursome trudged forward silently, each thinking his or her own thoughts and not daring to break the awkward quiet.

Eren knew that they were definitely lost (or something) when he saw a sign for the Museum of Natural History suddenly appear in the darkness. "Annie, you're lost," he commented grumpily. "Let's go downstairs and check out a subway map."

Annie shook her head. She seemed to be thinking quickly, gears whirring rapidly behind her icy eyes. Eren didn't have long to worry about it, though-

"Eren, do you want to know anything else about your dad?" She blurted it out before she could stop herself, and she wondered if she was making the right choice in doing it. After all, she  _had_  told Krista that she'd wait for Eren to bring it up on his own terms. But she could see Krista waiting at the top of the nearby Museum steps, and if things were going just as planned, then she needed to hurry up and finish with the boy before he and his friends noticed the tiny blonde.

"I..." Eren was at a loss for words, and this made her feel badly. Connie and Sasha stood by, mouths agape but morbidly curious to hear the rest of the conversation.

What he said surprised even himself. "N-no. Not... tonight."

Annie gave him a discerning sort of look. "Are you sure?"

He nodded quietly. "Maybe someday. Maybe as early as tomorrow, or as late as never. Maybe he'll come back, and he can tell me himself. But... I just can't hear it now." He glanced ruefully over at her.

"So maybe someday, Annie Leonhart."

She offered him a smile, and he thought she looked all the more pretty for it. "I understand," she said, and he really thought she did.

"Thank you," he responded, suddenly feeling relieved.

"Hey... isn't that Armin's cousin? Historia-something?"

Connie gave her a weird look. "Her name's Krista, Sash. That's not even close."

"Oh. She looks a lot like someone else I know, I guess." Sasha shrugged. "Hey, Krista!" she hollered through the dancing storm of white. "Krista!"

And there she was, followed by Ymir... and Mikasa. Eren shivered slightly, unable to tear his eyes away. In his distraction, he would have never expected what Annie said next.

"He's all yours, ladies!"

 

* * *

 

Mo didn't give a flying fuck about the shocked looks that many of the 49 Rock's patrons gave him - they bounced right off of him as he brushed right past, barely looking where he was going. When he nearly slammed into another diner's chair, he didn't even mumble an apology. He just kept going, and going, and going-

"Mo!" hollered an all-too-familiar voice from behind him. It sounded something like an echo to him. Maybe it was all of the blood rushing wildly through his ears, pounding incessantly through his aching chest-

"Moblit Berner! Stop, right now!"

And that was when he knew that he'd had enough. He didn't even care in the slightest about the scene he was causing as he whirled around on a pleading Hange Zoë and shouted, "No!  _You_  stop! You stop, and tell me the truth right now, because I'm tired of wondering what goes on at home while I'm not there! I'm tired of chasing after you, when you obviously don't want to be caught! I'm tired of-"

"This is stupid," she interrupted, coming close enough to stop him right in his own tracks. "This is so, so dumb."

"You can't be serious," he muttered in response, feeling more hurt than ever before. "Don't just write me off like I don't have any feelings at all, H-Hange." It was sincerely painful, trying to say her name.

She looked very serious as she said, "No. I'm not writing you off, Mo. I know you have feelings. I  _love_  your feelings." And then-

"I love  _you_."

"No, you don't-" he began, knowing that he sounded perfectly childish-

"Let me finish!" she exclaimed. All eyes were on them now, fascinated by what they saw as a  _very_  loud,  _very_  public break-up.

"What's  _stupid_  is this entire situation. What's  _dumb_  is how afraid I am of something that's good, that's what I want for me. And," she paused, licking her lips slightly, "For you. At least, I hope."

So she got down one knee, for real this time, and asked him the question that he never thought he'd hear.

"Moblit Berner, will you marry me?"

The first thing he said in response was, "Uh...?"

And then, "Are you  _sure_?"

She raised a single dark eyebrow. "Seriously? You're asking me that  _now_?" Her voice shook a little, extremely conscious of their audience's bated breath.

"I... But what about Erwin?"

Suddenly, the man in question appeared at his shoulder. "Mo," he explained warmly, "She was just practicing on me, back in the kitchens. She was really nervous about all of this. So please, believe me when I say that."

And then, just to reassure him even further, he leaned down to whisper in the other man's ear, "You should also know that I'm... not particularly into women. So..."

Unlike Hange, Mo was surprised by Erwin's admission about his sexuality, but for now, that surprise was overridden by a deepening sense of guilt. "I'm sorry I ever doubted you, Erwin. I shouldn't have accused you-"

"Oh, my God!" Hange suddenly shouted, cutting her two roommates off in their tracks. "Are you going to marry me or what?"

Mo looked down at his long-time girlfriend, the light of his life, still balancing rather wobbly on one knee, and burst out laughing. He fell to the floor in front of her and took her beautiful face in his hands and kissed her, deep and lovingly.

"Of  _course_." 

As he listened to the  _ooos_  and  _ahhhs_  of his delighted patrons, Dot Pixis grinned wider than he ever had before.

 

* * *

 

"Marco..."

Reiner and Bertholdt exchanged a knowing look that seemed to say,  _Our work here is done_. The boyfriends quietly clasped hands and strode down the sidewalk towards the movie theater's doors, just in time to catch the last showing of  _Frozen_. They had always had a soft spot for Disney movies, after all.

"Did you really mean it?" Jean asked softly, his heart hammering in his chest.

Marco swallowed his shyness and took a hesitant step forward, wiping his embarrassingly sweaty hands off on the dark green apron that he hadn't bothered to take off.

"Yeah. Yeah, I did."

Jean chuckled nervously before he could stop himself, and Marco blushed at the sound. Jean liked that blush - he liked the way that it made the other boy's freckles stand out even more.

He realized then that he was beginning to have a thing for freckles.

"So... what now?" he asked. He closed the distance between them, feeling all hot and cold at the same time at the sight of the light in Marco's dark eyes, the exact same shade as his favorite coffee.

Suddenly, Marco thought of Reiner's bravery in the face of adversity. His own problems seemed a lot smaller, and this emboldened him greatly.

"I think this is the part where we kiss," he tried.

And as the first snowflakes began to fall on their heads, Jean and Marco did just that. They stayed that way for a long time.

 

* * *

 

Suddenly, Ymir was dragging him up the steps towards the Museum, and Eren had never been more terrified in his life. The last time he and Ymir had touched, it was Halloween, and that contact had been her fist in his face.

But she didn't seem slap-happy at the moment; on the contrary, her face was cheerfully free, and she even dropped Eren a wink as she pushed him into position next to Mikasa.

Krista shooed the remaining trio away with a flap of her tiny hand. "Time to go home, Annie," she said meaningfully, and the girl in question nodded, turning on her heel into the darkness. With a bemused look, Connie and Sasha began to follow.

"Wait!" Eren cried out suddenly, his shout piercing the cold, snowy air. "Annie!"

Mikasa watched carefully as he asked the other girl for her number. "I think we should get back together sometime," he explained almost shyly as he shoved his own phone into her surprised palms.

Annie nodded once more, a slow smile creeping across her severe features. "Alright."

"Thanks again... for everything."

"Now go!" Krista exclaimed. "Away with you!"

Connie looked more confused than ever. "But what about Eren and Mikasa?"

"We'll send them home later, don't worry. Armin's arranged everything."

Eren's ocean eyes widened. "Armin's done  _what_?"

"Apparently, he's a criminal mastermind," Mikasa said by way of explanation, and Eren gave her a funny look. It was only when he realized that their eyes had truly met that he dropped his gaze, a blush crossing his lightly tanned cheeks.

Once their friends had disappeared into the night, Krista turned towards Eren and Mikasa. "Now, you two," she began, looking them each in the eye. She still looked absolutely adorable, even though she was talking like this was a matter of life and death. "I hope I don't need to say anything else."

"Here are your tickets," Ymir said curtly, shoving two glossy slips of paper into Mikasa's gloved hands. "Make good choices."

And before either could get a last word in, the girlfriends joined hands and made for the stairs, following in the footsteps of their already-gone friends as they vanished into the snowy darkness.

 

* * *

 

Connie, Sasha, and Annie rode the train back to Fort Trost in relative silence, occasionally peppered by Sasha's moans over just how tasty the food had been. Connie sat sandwiched in between them, not knowing what to say in the slightest. Sasha had kissed him, laughed with him over dinner, laced her fingers through his as they had left the museum. But there were still the moments when she wouldn't meet his eyes, when she'd proclaimed that she'd be heading home early, when she'd broken their touches off uncomfortably early.

_Was it something he'd said?_

Despite the air of awkwardness that hung over them, the ride home felt oddly quick. As Connie took out his phone to text Jean, however, the question that had been bothering him most resurfaced.

"Annie... No offense, but why are you here in Fort Trost?"

"I need to talk to someone," was all she said in response.

Connie blinked. "That's... it?"

"Yeah." The way she said it, with such finality, made Connie feel rather unwilling to press the situation. So he ignored mental questions like,  _How are you planning on getting home? Does your mom know you're here?_  as he turned away and waited for Jean's response.

 

**To: Horseface**

_hey bro is ur movie over? sorry if youre stupid and 4got 2 turn ur sound off, youll be tht lil bitch who everyone hates_

 

It took a few minutes for Jean to write back, and although he noticed Sasha's intense shivering, he made no move to wrap his arm comfortingly around her shoulders. He didn't want to feel her flinch away again.

 

**From: Horseface**

_no no i can pick u up now, r you at the train?_

**To: Horseface**

_yah... r u sure? i thot u werent getting out for another 1/2 hr or so_

**From: Horseface**

_nope b right there_

 

They heard Jean's rickety death trap before they saw it. Their friend swung precariously into the station's parking lot, reaching a hand through the driver's window to beckon them forward. The three rushed forward, grateful to finally get out of the unfriendly cold.

"Shotgun!" Connie crowed, but that mission was promptly cut short when he saw a familiar face sitting in the seat he so desired. "Wha-"

"Hey, Con!" exclaimed Marco Bott cheerfully.

"Wait, where's Armin?" Annie asked suddenly.

Jean gave her a once-over. "You must be Annie," he guessed.

The girl in question rolled her ice-blue eyes. "Tell me something I don't know. Where's Armin?"

"He's at the movie theater," Jean explained, sounding a little sorry. "He didn't want to leave. Said he was waiting for someone. I figured I'd come back in an hour to make sure he's okay..."

"Can you drive me there, please?"

 

* * *

 

"The Museum of Natural History, huh?"

Mikasa gripped her ticket tightly and stalked towards the entryway. "I guess they knew it's my favorite."

"Mom took us here once, remember? And I saw that red scarf in the gift shop-"

They were on line then, so she tugged said scarf out from the front of her silver puffer.

He finally smiled at her, and her heart warmed. "You still wear it all the time."

"Of course."

"Are you here for the Valentine's Day special?" asked the guard at the security booth.

Mikasa blinked. "I didn't know there was one."

The guard gave her a funny look. "Well, your tickets say that you paid for it, so..." He shrugged and made a show of pointing out a corridor towards their left. "LeFrak Theater's that way. Have fun, Happy Valentine's Day, blah, blah."

Eren couldn't help but laugh. "Okay, sure."

They passed down the hallway, and Eren noticed an overhead sign proclaiming,  _Extended Hours Holiday Special! Across the Universe... in 3D!_

"A 3D movie?" Eren wondered. "Why would Krista and Ymir buy us movie tickets?"

"Let's go find out," she deadpanned in response. "The suspense is killing me."

 

* * *

 

It was very cold and very dark, and Armin was about ready to give up on Annie Leonhart. He stood shivering outside the Trost Megaplex, wondering why exactly he was doing so.

 _11:15,_  his watch blared in unsympathetic Indiglo.  _11:15:59. 11:16._

He sighed, slumping down onto a nearby bench and promptly feeling a wet sort of sensation course straight through his khakis and into his underwear.

 _Snow,_  he thought tiredly.  _I just sat in a pile of snow. Great. Just great-_

But then-

"Armin?"

And-

"Why is your butt all wet?"

 _Of course she would turn up_ now _._  He laughed ruefully, attempting to brush the remaining snow from the seat of his pants and pretty much making the situation worse. "Didn't look before I fell," he explained as he turned towards her, watching her cross the parking lot towards him.

Beneath their icy pallor, her eyes were warm for him, but he knew that he couldn't read too far into it. It was just like Thomas Wagner had implied - he was totally, utterly forgettable.

 _Armin? Who's Armin?_  he recalled, thinking of the other boy's awkward expression as Jean had introduced them. 

 _Do_ I _even really know the answer to that question?_

"How was your dinner?" he asked instead. He wasn't ready to say "date."

"I had a good steak."

"Ah."

"Your friends are nice," she added, twisting a lock of frosty blond fringe securely behind her ear. Armin offhandedly wished that he could be the one to do that, but, as per usual, there was no point in getting his hopes up. It just wasn't worth it.

"So... Did Eren meet your expectations?" He was clearly remembering their first conversation at NYU the week before. They had gotten to talking when he'd asked if Annie had ever met his cousin Krista at Military Academy. One thing had led to another, and after a healthy round of Six Degrees of Separation, he'd mentioned Eren. Eren Yeager, his best friend. And as soon as Annie had heard "Yeager," well...

"I have to meet him," she had explained. "Will you ask him if I can?"

And then the formations of his wild idea: set them up on a date for Valentine's Day. He'd kill two birds with one stone - fulfill Annie's wish and distract Eren from his mopey heartbreak over Mikasa.

But as the week had passed on, it had all felt more and more wrong to him. It was selfish, he knew. He just liked her too much to let her go like that. He'd have to be brave. But being brave was easier said then done.

He'd called Krista for advice, and together, they'd revised his plan - get Mikasa into the city as well, and then somehow throw Eren in with her, just in time.

"But what if Annie actually ends up liking him?" he'd asked his older cousin, chewing on a hangnail in his usual nervous way. "I can't keep her from happiness!"

"She won't," Ymir had interrupted, having picked up the other landline in the girls' apartment so she could listen in on their conversation. "Annie doesn't like  _anyone_ -"

"Not exactly true, hun," Krista had countered. Armin had heard her scrubbing at the dishes on the other end. Somehow, the  _rub, rub_  sound had calmed him down - it had reminded him of the happier days where the two cousins had lived together with their grandfather, before Krista had left for the city to attend Military and Grandpa had relapsed into his quiet depression, utterly unwilling to think about the death of his son and his wife and the disappearance of his daughter and her husband, all within a few short years of each other. Armin didn't blame the old man in the slightest, but the entire situation had left him in an eternally helpless state - he hated seeing his grandfather this way, like any good grandchild would.

"Wait, Krista, what do you know?" he had asked, suddenly feeling slightly more hopeful.

He had practically heard her thinking as she had continued to soak her plates in what he had imagined as a kitchen sink overflowing with soapy bubbles. "Well... I can't tell you just yet," she had explained. "But I promise, Armin, it'll work out. You just have to trust me, okay? We'll get Mikasa to the city, but act surprised about it if she mentions it to you, got it?"

"Be convincing," Ymir had added. "You're a wimpy actor, Arlert."

"Hey-"

He had heard the smile in her voice. "But I know you're gonna be great. Good luck, kiddo."

Armin snapped out of his reverie then as Annie responded with, "He didn't want to hear it. About his dad."

This surprised Armin greatly. He knew how much Eren valued answers. "Really?"

She shrugged, moving closer towards him. The theater's outside lights fell like a halo upon her fair hair. "But he did say 'someday.' So I think he'll be ready then... don't you?"

"Huh." Naturally, he couldn't even begin to understand his best friend's feelings over his father's disappearance, but he would always respect Eren's decisions - that's what friends were for. "I guess we'll wait and see."

"He looked before he fell," Annie said softly in response, repeating his exact words, and this shocked Armin into silence. She was moving even closer now, and he could see that there were snowflakes tangled in her nearly translucent eyelashes. "Did you?"

And he knew that she wasn't talking about his unfortunate accident with the bench, but about something else entirely. And in that moment, he finally threw caution to the wind. Because really, he deserved much better than he had ever offered himself.

"I don't think I did," he began carefully, looking her in the eye, blue for blue. "It was all so quick."

"Right," she concluded, just as quietly as before.

They stayed in silence for a little longer, and before he could chicken out, Armin took a deep breath and reached for her bare hand. They were very cold, but he quickly discovered that her fingers fit between his perfectly, and that only made things better.

"Here," he said, pressing Jean's movie ticket to  _Robocop_  into the hand that was joined with his. "We can still catch the next showing. But fair warning - I think it's pretty bad."

She looked down, surprised but pleased, a beautiful blush crossing her fair cheeks. "I'm in," she responded, trying to sound a bit apathetic as custom, but he could hear the willingness in her tone, and that was all that mattered.

 

* * *

 

Jean decided to drop Sasha off first. He told himself that it was geographically logical, but in truth, he just wasn't ready to let go of Marco. He'd save the best for last.

When the awful roar of the van's engine finally died, Sasha leaned over Connie's lap to push the swing door open. "Well... good night."

Connie felt like he was about to laugh, or burst out in tears, or a weird combination of both, he wasn't really sure. He tried to meet her eyes as she attempted to crawl over him without making contact with his knees, but she just wouldn't look at him. He could feel Jean's eyes on him, however, and the questions within them.

"Good night," he echoed hollowly.

They watched her trudge up the steps towards her front door. Even from the small distance, he could see her small fist trembling slightly as she raised it to knock on her door-

"What are you doing, man?" Jean asked suddenly. "What happened between you two?"

"She's mad at me, I think," Connie answered sadly. "I don't know why, though."

Marco twisted around in his seat, giving him a kindly look. "You know, Connie, someone told me tonight that the best remedy for misunderstandings is to just tell the truth. And," he continued, with a sideways glance towards Jean, "It worked pretty well for me."

Jean looked at his best friend in the rearview mirror and gave him a wicked grin. "Go after her, man. We'll wait."

Connie didn't need to be told twice. He threw open the door, clambered awkwardly down from his seat, and, nearly skidding backwards down the icy driveway as he did so, dashed as quickly as he could towards the girl he loved.

"Sash!"

She didn't turn around, but he could see her hand hesitating.

"Sasha, please, what's going on?"

"I..." She still didn't turn towards him, and now she was crossing her red-coated arms tightly across her chest. "I... Not now, Connie-"

"No!" he shouted, the volume surprising them both. In the back of his mind, he hoped he hadn't woken up all of the younger Blouses in their beds. "Now!  _Now_  we talk! I need to know if I've done anything wrong-"

"I can't!" she suddenly burst out, turning on him with a wild fear in her open book eyes. "I can't have sex with you!"

Connie's brain short-circuited when she said the S-word. "Wait... what?" he asked dumbly, staring at her in utter confusion.

"I  _know_  it's our anniversary, and I  _know_  we've almost gotten there, and I  _know_  we both have been thinking about me, believe me, I think about it  _a lot_ , but I just  _can't_ -"

"Sasha," breathed Connie, trying to stifle a laugh. "Sash... After a decade of friendship and a year of dating, you  _still_  think I'm that kinda guy? The kind that expects favors, or something, because that's what the movies and other shit say?"

She bit her lip, staring up at him.

"Yeah, I've, er, been thinking about it," he said quietly. "I can't pretend I haven't been. I mean," he chuckled, "I've been in love with you ever since I've known you." It was so easy to say, but he broke out blushing at it. "But an anniversary is just a date on a calendar, Sash. It doesn't mean go hard or go home.

"And besides, someone once told me to not make any assumptions until I've heard all sides of the story."

His kind expression made her throw her arms around his waist, nearly squeezing the life out of him, but he'd never felt better.

"Sorry," she whispered, but he shushed her with a kiss.

"Nothing to be sorry 'bout," he mumbled once they'd broken apart. Suddenly, he remembered the box - he'd hidden it inside of his coat when they'd gotten into the car. "Wait, I have something for you!" He wiggled his arm into the deep interior pocket and produced the present, wrapped painstakingly by the gift shop lady back at the Rose Plaza.

Sasha turned the box over and over in her hands, looking surprised. "You didn't have to get me anything!"

He shrugged, bashful. "It reminded me of you. Hope they haven't melted."

 _"Melted?" That means food!_  She was terribly curious now. "Can I open it now?"

"Yeah, sure, why not?"

She carefully removed the wrapping paper, wanting to save it just like everything else that he had touched, and read the box's label.

"Chocolate-Covered Potato Crisps," she said with a laugh. "Oh, man..."

"You like it?" he asked worriedly.

She responded with what he would later remember as one of their favorite kisses. He thought of it as a "yes," and that seemed a lot like a promise of good things to come.

Back in the van, Jean was ready to lean on the horn and startle them apart, but Marco punched him on the arm.

"Hey, what was that for?" he asked, injecting fake hurt into his tone as he mockingly rubbed at his bicep.

"You big baby," was what Marco murmured in response, and he leaned down to kiss Jean where he'd hit him. But this time, Jean made him miss on purpose - he reached down to lift Marco's lips to his instead.

 

* * *

 

The movie was pretty cool, Eren had to admit, although the presence of a few other mushy couples sitting around the circular auditorium made him a little nervous. It was still hard for him to look over at Mikasa. He didn't really know what to think about it yet. Everything about the evening's proceedings still seemed pretty surreal to him. He wondered how much of it had been pre-organized.

He wondered if the girl sitting next to him, entranced by the larger-than-life stars and planets wheeling overhead, had had any say in it.

The show was nearly over, Neil deGrasse Tyson warned them, but before that happened...

"And now, the supernova, one of the rarest phenomena known to man. See this star? See its brightness?"

He watched Mikasa give a slight nod, utterly captivated by the physicist's calming voice and the beginnings of a milky orange-blue cloud emerging directly overhead.

"It may seem strange, but stars this bright are actually dying, or in the process of doing so. Watch as its very core explodes with an energy that we can only put into numbers..."

In the background of the bursting light, a song that Eren couldn't quite remember the name of began to play.  _Nothing's gonna change my world, nothing's gonna change my world..._

"But even within the void that the star's shell leaves, the promise of something new remains behind. Here we see the beginnings of a nebula, one of the universe's most beautiful sights," Neil explained.

_Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box, they tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe..._

He watched the light of reborn stars fly across what  _he_  considered to be one of the universe's most beautiful sights, and without really thinking about it, without really planning it, he kissed her.

It took a few moments for her eyelashes to finally flutter closed, and they fell like silky strings against his flushed cheeks. He deepened the kiss, cupping her sharp chin in his hand, winding his fingers through her beautiful hair. And the stars burst into being, illuminating their newly-opened faces...

After some time they broke apart, foreheads leaning against each other. That was when she muttered, "Took you long enough," and this made him laugh long and loud.

"I'll never make you wait again, Mikasa. I promise."

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Erwin logged onto his Times subscription and, as was his custom, scanned the paper's culinary section. The first title leapt out at him immediately, and he somewhat nervously clicked on the link, peering closer-

 

**Why You Should Avoid the 49 Rock**

By: LEVI ACKERMAN

February 15, 2014

_Be careful, dear readers - if wild declarations of romance, high schoolers on blind dates, and incredibly sexy chefs don't appeal to you... this isn't the restaurant for you. But if you're prepared to test the waters of absolute cheesiness... try the Bavarian pretzels with a dab of honey mustard._

 

He glanced behind himself at Levi, who was just turning over in his bed. The latter was wearing one of the former's old t-shirts ( _Kiss the Cook!_ ) because truthfully, the two men hadn't really been thinking about pajamas when they'd barged into his bedroom around three in the morning.

 _For such an angry little man, he smiles a lot in his sleep,_  Erwin thought with a chuckle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started out wanting to write a Jeanmarco bit, but this is clearly no longer the case.
> 
> NMQP mainly takes place in Manhattan, a city I don't know extremely well (I'm a Bostonian), so if I screwed up really, truly badly with geography, facts, people, etc., many apologies! Erwin's restaurant is based on the Brasserie Ruhlmann, the real restaurant at 49 Rock, and most of the story's events take place on Fifth Avenue, Museum Mile... and in suburban New Jersey. I replaced some real-life locations' names with cities/towns/etc. taken from SnK, e.g. Fort Trost, where the kids live, is based on Fort Lee, a real town near the Hudson River. Hope that makes at least a little sense.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!
> 
> ♡(˃͈ દ ˂͈ ༶ )


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